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ABRAHAM, JOSEPH, AND MOSES 
IN EGYPT. 



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A/VWS 




FROM SIPTAH'S TOMB. 



S I P T A H. 

Offering the Goddess Ma (Justice) to Amen-Ra. 



— - 

ABRAHAM, JOSEPH, AND MOSES 
IN EGYPT: 



BEING A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE 

THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, PRINCETON, 

NEW JERSEY. 



BY 

REV. ALFRED H. KELLOGG, D.D., 

OF PHILADELPHIA, 
MEMBER OF " VICTORIA INSTITUTE," ETC., ETC. 











NEW YORK: 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND COMPANY. 

LONDON: TRUBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. 

1887. 






Copyright, 1887, 
By Anson D. F. Randolph & Co. 



tSm'bensttg preas: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



PREFACE. 



THE purpose of this course of lectures is to 
ascertain, if possible, the position of Abraham, 
Joseph and Moses in Egypt's history. 

It would be premature to attempt to fix the date 
of the era in the world's chronology, although many 
such attempts have been made. The first date in 
Egypt's history that can be dated with precision 
is as late on as Dynasty XXVI. The chronology of 
what goes before is purely conjectural, and depends 
on the estimates made of the gaps and uncertain 
time-elements, that persistently remain such. 

All that is possible at present is to reconstruct 
such periods (longer oa shorter) as can be fairly 
well recovered from the monuments, and to wait 
patiently for further "finds," that may serve to 
connect these together. 

Accordingly, no attempt has been made to fix the 
chronology of our period absolutely, but relatively 
to its own contents. There are serious gaps even 
in the period discussed in the lectures ; and the 
utmost that can be claimed is that parts of it have 



vi Preface. 



been made out with some degree of certainty and 
that the gaps have become more clearly defined. 
Where so much is necessarily hypothetical, it seems 
reasonable to enter a caveat against the tendency 
of the times unduly to prolong Egypt's chronology. 
There certainly is no need of writing about " cen- 
turies" for intervals, when decades would answer 
as well. 

The lectures are humbly submitted simply as a 
study in the comparative chronology of Egypt's 
monuments and the Bible tradition, — not in any 
dogmatic spirit, but as a tentative effort, looking to 
the harmony of the two sources of history. What- 
ever may be thought of the positions assumed in 
any one lecture, the author would venture to ask 
that judgment may be suspended until the six 
lectures are read through. The argument of the 
one part will be found to be supported by the 
argument of another part and the connection of 
the whole. The lectures are published with the 
hope that they will be accepted in the spirit in 
which they are conceived, and in the sure confi- 
dence that ultimately perfect harmony will be dis- 
covered between the chronological indications of the 
monuments and the data of Holy Scripture. 



March, 1887. 



SUMMARY OF THE LECTURES. 



LECTURE I. 

The Monumental Chronology of the Period covered 
by Dynasties XII.-XX. 

Sources for reconstructing the Egyptian chronology; their 
relative value. 

A. Dynasty XII. : its eight Pharaohs ; its collapse ; its 
period. 

B. Dynasty XYTII. : the Manetho lists ; the monumental 
history, with regnal periods. 

C. Dynasty XIX. : confusion of Manetho lists ; monumen- 
tal reconstruction. 

D. Dynasties XIII.-XYII. : an obscure section ; monu- 
mental light only at its beginning and end ; Manetho lists 
contradictory, — necessity of reconstructing these, par- 
ticularly those of the Shepherd Dynasties (XV., XVI., 
and XVII.) ; a possible basis for the reconstruction 
to be found in two suppositions, — viz., (1) a continu- 
ous native line throughout the section ; (2) that the 
dynastic divisions simply mark crises in its history ; 
supposed outline of the original Manetho story ; con- 
tradictions of the abbreviators explained thereby ; in 
harmony with monumental and historic hints. 

The Chronology: the length of the Shepherd Era; a 
clew derived from the position of the names of Shepherd 
kings in the Manetho lists; corroborated by the "Set 
Era " of the Tanis tablet ; place of the " Set Era " in 
Egypt's history ; bearing of Numbers xiii. 22. 



Page 



viii Summary of the Lectures. 



LECTURE II. 



Page 



The Chronology of the Corresponding Period in 

the Hebrew Tradition 32 

The Scripture-time indications of the period twofold, — viz., 
genealogical and a definite time-period; their relative 
value. The four forms of the Hebrew time-period. (1) 
What is the period ? The view of the " Seventy " ; Lep- 
sius and the number 430 ; St. Paul's view ; limitations of 
the Hebrew registers ; solution to be found in the Genesis 
prediction, which regards Abraham in his representative 
character ; Abram and his " seed " one. (2) How is the 
time-period to be measured ? Its initial year ; the calling 
of Abram a strategic point in the Hebrew tradition. 



LECTURE III. 

Points op Contact op the Two Chronologies : Part 

L, The Era op Joseph 52 

The certain and uncertain time-elements in the two chro- 
nologies indicated in the chart of comparative chronol- 
ogy ; why five Egyptian registers are furnished for com- 
parison ; Joseph's fourteen-year period in the five ; the 
last three Registers discarded ; Register I. presents a 
shorter chronology than Register II. ; either could be 
adjusted to the Hebrew story ; the date of Jacob's death 
in each ; the rise and progress of the religious revolution 
of Dynasty XVIII. ; Joseph's probable connection there- 
with ; Joseph and Heliopolis ; the influence of the Helio- 
polite dogma on the Hebrews ; Joseph's Pharaoh a native 
sovereign ; his elevation explicable ; is there any monu- 
mental reference to Joseph or his famine in either of the 
reigns indicated by the two Registers ? 



Summary of the Lectures. ix 



LECTURE IV. 

Page 

Part II., The Eras of Abraham and Moses . . 82 

A. Abram's Pharaoh a Shepherd king; favored by the 
Hebrew story ; who may he have been ? why was Isaac 
forbidden to go to Egypt? (Gen. xxvi. 1. 2) ; corrobora- 
tive evidence that Abram's Pharaoh was a Shepherd fur- 
nished by the presence of Hittites in Southern Palestine 
as early as his day ; also supported by the " Set Era " 
of the Tanis tablet. 

B. Hints of the Hebrew story as to the status of the He- 
brews as long as " Joseph's generation " survived and of 
a change soon thereafter ; the "new king" ; his " know- 
ing not Joseph " ; Rameses II. and the Hebrews (the 
store-city Pi thorn). 

C. The Pharaoh of Moses' birth (" Pharaoh's daughter ") ; 
the Pharaoh of Moses' flight, — of his eightieth year ; the 
Pharaoh who " died in the process of time " not Rameses 
II., and consequently his successor not Mineptah ; the 
general harmony of the two stories. 

LECTURE V. 

Part III., The Anarchy at the Close of Dynasty 

XIX., and the Exodus 103 

Dynasty XIX. ended in disaster, and anarchy ensued ; tes- 
timony of the " Great Harris Papyrus of Rameses III." ; 
translations by Eisenlohr, Brugsch, and Chabas of a pas- 
sage in the historical part of the papyrus ; a veritable ref- 
erence to the Hebrew Exodus. This view supported (1) 
on philological grounds ; (2) by historical reasons, — viz., 
in accord with the Hebrew chronology and history ; no 
known Egyptian " emigration " of that or any other era ; 
the history of the reign of Rameses III. (his eighth year 
an important factor) . 

Maspero's view of the papyrus story criticised. 



Summary of the Lectures. 



LECTURE VI. 

Page 

Part IV., The Pharaoh of the Exodus . . .124 

The Dynasty of the Exodus Pharaoh settled by M. Na- 
ville's discoveries ; the inquiry is, virtually, Who was the 
last Pharaoh of Dynasty XIX. ? Egyptologists divided 
as to the order of the last three reigns, and why ; Cham- 
pollion and the perplexing fragments in Siptah's tomb ; 
Chabas' view, Dr. Eisenlohr's, Lefebure's ; all monu- 
mental indications other than the tomb fragments are 
in opposition to Champollion's interpretation of them, 
and support the order of the Manetho lists ; a solution 
of the perplexing problem suggested by the relations of 
the parties concerned ; who Queen Tauser probably was, 
and who Siptah, Amenmes, and the " Seti, Prince of 
Cush " ; whichever of the two Pharaohs concerned may 
have been the last Pharaoh of the Dynasty, he would 
answer to the indications of the Hebrew story ; Setnekht's 
curious usurpation of the tomb suggestive. 



DYNASTIC LIST XH.-XX. 



DYNASTIC LIST XII.-XX. 



Dynasty XII. 


Dynasty XVII. 




Amenemhat I. 


(Native Line.) 


(Shepherds.) 


USERTESEN I. 


Rasekenen (Ta-aa) I. . . . 


Apepi. (61) 


Amenemhat II. 


Rasekenen (Ta-aa-aa) II. 




USERTESEN II. 


Rasekenen (Ta-aa-ken) III. 




Usertesen III. 


Kames. 




Amenemhat III. 
Amenemhat IV. 






Dynasty XVIII. 




Sebekneferuka. 


Aahmes. 






Amenhotep I. 




Dynasty XII Let cet. 


Thothmes I. 






Sebekhotep I. 


Thothmes II. 

& Hatasu. 
Thothmes III. 

Amenhotep II 

Thothmes IV. 

Amenhotep III. 

Amenhotep IV. (Khuenaten). 

Sa'anekht. 












Tu.Paps. 
No. 6. 


S'ankhabra. 


2 


No. 16. 
No. 21. 


Sebekhotep III. 




Sebekhotep IV. 


o 

l? 1 


No. 22. 
No. 24. 


Neferhotep. 


Tut'ankhamen. 
Ai. 




Sebekhotep V. 




No. 26. 
No. 27. 

No. 45. 


? 

Sebekhotep VI. 

Sebekhotep VII. 


Horus. 




Dynasty XIX. 
Rameses I. 
Seti I. (Mineptah I.). 
Rameses II. (Miamen). 
Mineptah (II. Hotephima). 
Seti II. (Mineptah III.). 

Amenmes. 
Siptah (Mineptah IV.) & Tauser. 




Merkaura. 




























Dynasty XX. 






Setnekht. 






Rameses III. 






Rameses IV. et cet. 





ABRAHAM, JOSEPH, AND MOSES 
IN EGYPT. 



LECTUEE I. 

CHRONOLOGY OF THE EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES, XII.-XX. 

THEEE are but two sources for the reconstruc- 
tion of Egyptian chronology, — (1) the mon- 
uments, and (2) the traditions of Manetho and other 
ancient authors. To be sure, an appeal may sub- 
sequently be made to certain Scripture time-indica- 
tions, which as far as they go furnish corroborative 
proof of results reached ; but the sacred writer does 
not complete the story of Egypt, as that was not 
Moses' object. 

The statements of the monuments are of course 
final as far as they go, though unfortunately these 
up to now cover but parts of our period. 

As to the traditions of Manetho and other ancient 
authors, criticism - has to deal with these very care- 
fully, — one might say, sometimes severely. The 
statements of Greek and Latin authors, which up to 
quite recently formed the basis of our Egyptian his- 
tories, are proven by the monuments to be of little 

l 



2 Abraham j Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

value. Professor Sayce is particularly severe on 
Herodotus, 1 affirming " that modern research obliges 
us to indorse the judgment passed upon Herodotus 
almost as soon as his History was published, and that 
it is not only untrustworthy, but unveracious.' , 

Did we but possess the original work of Manetho 
the Egyptian priest, who at the instance of Ptolemy 
Philadelphus wrote in Greek a history of his people 
professedly drawn from the monuments, it would 
doubtless prove invaluable for our purpose. Unfor- 
tunately, it has survived only in some extracts and 
summaries incorporated in the works of Josephus 
and of some Christian writers, particularly Africanus 
and Eusebius, and later on of Syncellus. 2 

With great industry and zeal Lepsius collected 
together, in his "Tables of Manetho Sources," 3 the 
historical data of these extracts, adding thereto every 
tradition alleged to have been Manetho's ; so that a 
very fair idea of their value may be obtained by 
comparing the lists. The comparison will be sure to 
convince any one that Chabas' estimate was just, 
though severe, when, referring to the extreme con- 
fusion of the lists, he affirmed that without the as- 
sistance of the monuments it would be an impossible 
task to gather from them what Manetho really did 

1 Ancient Empires of the East, — Preface, p. xxii. 

2 Julius Africanus died a. d. 232 ; Eusebius Pamphili of Caesarea, a. d. 
270-340. George Syncellus lived in the eighth century. His work was a 
compilation from other abbreviators. 

3 They form the middle section of the " Konigsbuch," Berlin, 1858. 



The Egyptian Chronology. 



say. He adds : " All the versions bear traces of in- 
terpolations or of falsifications." 1 

It is certainly, therefore, not without reason that 
greatest reserve should be exercised in quoting from 
them, and especially in basing an argument upon 
them. The one fact, however, that can be attributed 
to Manetho beyond any doubt is his division of 
Egypt's history into Dynasties, or Houses, — a divi- 
sion which, however it be interpreted in its details, is 
of greatest convenience in handling the narrative. 

It must not be inferred from what has been said 
that the Manetho lists are valueless, or even of little 
worth. The lists, and particularly his dynastic di- 
visions, have proven an invaluable help in locating, 
with more or less of certainty, the scattered names 
gathered from the monuments. Still, in any contro- 
versy between the two sources of reconstruction, a 
monumental fact or date must be accepted as final. 
Certainty therefore, in the present inquiry, will 
mean certainty as assured by monumental indica- 
tions. It is only when these fail that the Manetho 
indications may be accepted, though even then sim- 
ply as a temporary bridge over a chasm. 

Advancing to our task, — the reconstruction of 
the chronology of the period covered by Dynasties 
XII.-XX., — that of Dynasty XII. need not chronology 

J J of Dynasty 

detain us long. Its founder was one Ame- xh. 
nemhat I., who mounted the throne after a war of 

1 Les Pasteurs (Amsterdam, 1868), p. 14. 



4 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

succession, and became the ancestor of a notable se- 
ries of kings, some of whom were venerated in the 
latest era. The order of succession and the regnal 
periods of its eight sovereigns have been fairly well 
recovered from the monuments, though there re- 
mains an element of uncertainty as to the exact 
time-period of the Dynasty arising from lack of mon- 
umental information as to the time that should be 
allowed for the associated reigns of one or two of 
the Pharaohs. The reigns of these Amenemhats 
and Usertesens furnished Egypt with a strong and 
beneficent government. During the first six reigns 
Egypt greatly prospered. Nubia was conquered, 
and the name "Cush" first appears on the monu- 
ments. The mines of the Sinaitic Peninsula were 
occupied and worked. Great public works were ex- 
ecuted, looking to the regulation of the Nile inun- 
dations and the artificial irrigation of the country. 
Architecture, painting, sculpture, and literature di- 
vided the attention of these Pharaohs, equally skilled 
in the arts of peace and of war. But the Dynasty 
seems to have suddenly collapsed ; for the last two 
reigns — a brother and a sister — were brief (but 
nine and four years respectively), betokening trouble 
of some kind. At any rate, the brilliant Dynasty, 
after ruling Egypt for about 170 years, came to an 
end. 1 

1 Both Maspero (in his " Histoire Ancienne," p. 98, note 5) and Brugsch 
(in his " History of Egypt," vol. i. p. 120) have discussed the chronology of 
this Dynasty, and both make the total somewhat larger, not allowing suf- 



The Egyptian Chronology. 



Leaving now Dynasty XII., and passing over for 
the present the obscurer part of our period, — Dy- 
nasties XIII.-XVIL, — we would next con- chronology 

of Dynasty 

sider Dynasty XVIII. xvm. ' 

The Manetho lists covering Dynasty XVIII. are in 
a state of great confusion. Even from a monumental 
point of view, the Dynasty is full of problems. Still, 
it is possible to recover from the monuments the order 
of succession with but few elements of uncertainty, 
and to gather a fair idea of the dynastic period. 

Its founder was one Aahmes, Egypt's liberator from 
the Shepherds, who was succeeded by his son Ameno- 
phis I., and he by his son Thothmes I. Thothmes I. 
was succeeded by three of his children, — a daughter 
and two sons, as they are generally regarded. The 
first of them, Thothmes II., married his sister, and 
was completely dominated by her, she being the vir- 
tual ruler, — the masculine Queen Hatasu. The rule 
of her husband-brother did not last long, and it ended 
obscurely. Hatasu succeeded, nominally as Regent 
to her younger brother, but for a time at least she 
assumed the style and even the dress of a king, 
ruling as such some fifteen years, and only allowing 
the young Thothmes to be associated with her when 

ficient for the associated parts of the later reigns. The amount of overlapping 
in the earlier four reigns can he gathered from the monuments ; but this is 
not true of the later reigns, and forms an element of uncertainty. The Turin 
Papyrus makes the sum 213 years by counting, though with a slight error, 
the regnal periods and without allowance for any overlapping. The Manetho 
lists make the period 168, — a number probably much nearer the truth. The 
dynastic period adopted in the text is probably quite correct. 



6 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

it could no longer be avoided. Her reign, though 
brilliant, was resented by Thothmes III. He dis- 
honored her monuments and ignored her rule, dating 
his own reign from the date of his brother's death. 

Egyptologists are now pretty well agreed that 
eighty-one years would be ample to cover the 
period from the accession of Aahmes to the first 
year of Thothmes III. 

The monuments yield the period of the latter's 
reign to a day. It was fifty-four years, less about a 
month. 1 The monuments yield but seven years each 
to his two successors, Amenophis II. and Thothmes 
IV., but assign to the next Pharaoh, Amenophis III., 
a reign of some thirty-six years. They also yield the 
twelfth year for his son Amenophis IV., or Khuenaten, 
though it is probable that he survived for another 
year. 

The rest of the Dynasty is differently treated by 
different scholars. It may suffice to say that monu- 
mental data would indicate that only what may be 
called a long generation really intervened between 
Amenophis III. and Seti I. of the succeeding Dynasty, 
— the intervening six Pharaohs (Amenophis IV., 
the three Heretical Kings so-called, Horus the Reac- 
tionary, and Eameses I.) being contemporaries. The 
limits of uncertainty of this part of the Dynasty will 
be more apparent in a later lecture, and need not 
detain us now. 

1 Brugsch's History, vol. i. p. 314. 



The Egyptian Chronology. 



We may then at once consider Dynasty XIX. 
In the case of this Dynasty, what has been said 
respecting the confusion attaching to the chronology 

-ir» -i ^ Dynasty 

Manetho lists and the need of monumental xix. 
information to set matters right, will be well illus- 
trated. The annexed diagram comprises six of the 
Manetho lists of the Dynasty given by Lepsius in his 
" Tables," the first of which we may for the moment 
regard as the standard Manetho, and compare there- 
with the other five. The comparison will show how 
impossible it would be, with Manetho alone, to recon- 
struct either the order of succession or the regnal 
periods of this Dynasty. It will be observed how 
confusion attaches to even the dynastic division in 
Lists IV. and V., these beginning Dynasty XIX. 
with an interpolated " Sethos " instead of with the 
u Arma'is " of the other lists, Armais being relegated 
by them to the previous Dynasty. 

In this particular instance it is fortunately possible 
from monumental indications, tabulated in the last 
column, to reconstruct with a good degree of cer- 
tainty the earlier two-thirds of the Dynasty and the 
latter third with a good degree of probability. In 
this case, therefore, the monuments show how the 
Manetho lists need to be corrected. We have indi- 
cated it in the diagram by putting in italics the parts 
that must be omitted altogether, and by enclosing 
the parts that must be transposed and placed after 
Sethos I. But even when this has been done, crit- 



8 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

icism would next have to deal severely with the 
regnal periods of the lists. 

The monuments now make it certain that Dynasty 
XIX. should be headed by Rameses L, and that he 
should be followed by Seti I., Rameses II., and Mi- 
neptah. The further order of succession is not quite 
so sure, there being some uncertainty as to whether 
the order should be that adopted in the diagram, or 
whether Seti II. should be made to follow Siptah and 
thus end the Dynasty. There is also some uncer- 
tainty as to the regnal periods of the seven Pha- 
raohs. This is indicated, in the monumental column 
of the diagram, by putting in parentheses the periods 
claimed by some for what they consider good rea- 
sons, the other numbers being the years yielded by 
the monuments. 

We are thus brought to the middle section of our 
period, — that beginning with Dynasty XIII. and 
chronology ending with Dynasty XVII. It is a sec- 

of Dynasties . . . 

xni.-xvn. tion that remains in some portions 01 it 
as obscure as it is mysterious. It is indeed only 
respecting its beginning and close that the monu- 
ments have anything to say. The so-called " Turin 
Papyrus," e. g., shows that the Sebekhotep who 
founded Dynasty XIII. was the immediate suc- 
cessor of the last sovereign of Dynasty XII. ; and 
there are a few other monumental remains which 
show that he and his successors, for a while at least, 
ruled over all Egypt. At the other end of the sec- 



The Egyptian Chronology. 9 

tion there are a number of documents 1 that connect 
Dynasty XVII. with Dynasty XVIIL, and which 
further show that one of the Manetho abbreviators, 
Africanus, correctly reported Dynasty XVII. as com- 
posed of synchronous reigns, — " Thebans and Shep- 
herds/' — the Shepherds being the real rulers and 
the Thebans being vassal princes, one of whom it 
was, Aahmes, who succeeded in expelling the for- 
eigners and so founded Dynasty XVIII. 

The Manetho lists covering this section are in a 
state of almost irremediable confusion. They con- 
tinue to accentuate the dynastic divisions, but they 
yield no names except six of Shepherd kings. They 
agree for the most part in making Dynasty XIII. 
" Theban," and Dynasty XIV. " Xoite ; " but they 
assign to each an apocryphal number of kings, with 
an equally apocryphal dynastic period. But they 
differ so, as respects the remaining Dynasties (XV., 
XVI., and XVIL), that the work of reconstruction 
is made a serious task, — some believe impossible. 
These last three Manetho Dynasties, however, are the 
" Shepherd " Dynasties. And as neither monuments 
nor papyri mention a word as to the rise of the Shep- 

1 They are the " Sallier Papyrus, No. I.," which establishes the synchro- 
nism of the Shepherd King Apepi with a native prince called Rasekenen ; an 
inscription in the tomb of one Aahmes, who served under King Aahmes in the 
war of liberation, — an inscription covering four reigns ; the "Abbott Papyrus," 
showing a line of native princes of the name of Rasekenen, and another tomb- 
inscription of a courtier, also called Aahmes, but surnamed Penneb, who lived 
in the latter part of Aahmes' reign and survived into the reign of Thothmes 
III. For a full account, see Chabas' " Les Pasteurs," pp. 16-38, and Brugsch's 
" History," vol. i. p. 239 ; also, Dr. Birch in "Rev. Arch.," 1859. 



10 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 



herds and but little of their fall, it becomes very im- 
portant to discover, if we can, what Manetho really 
did say of the Shepherd Era. To be sure, in view of 
the particularly glaring contradictions of the lists 
of these three Dynasties, the prospect of reaching 
any safe conclusions may appear very discouraging. 
Nevertheless, I believe it possible to gather the origi- 
nal Manetho story, in outline at least, from the very 
contradictions of the abbreviators, — an outline that 
can, moreover, be corroborated in several ways. 



Dynasty. 


? MANETHO. 


EUSEBIUS. 


AFRICANUS. 


XII. 


THEBAN. 

(All Egypt.) 








XIII. 


THEBAN. 
(All Egypt.) 




THEBAN. 


THEBAN. 


XIV. 


THEBAN. 

(Upper Egypt.) 


XOITE. 

(Lower Egypt.) 


XOITE. 


XOITE. 


XV. 


THEBAN. 

(Upper Egypt.) 


SHEPHERDS. 

(Lower Egypt.) 


THEBAN. 


SHEPHERDS. 

Six names. 


XVI. 


THEBAN. 

(Ethiopia.) 


SHEPHERDS. 

(All Egypt.) 


THEBAN. 


" Other 
SHEPHERDS." 


XVII. 


THEBAN. 

(Vassals.) 
(Upper Egypt.) 


SHEPHERDS. 
(Suzerains.) 
(All Egypt.) 


SHEPHERDS. 

" Phoenicians.'' 

Four names. 


"Other 
SHEPHERDS 

and 
THEBANS." 


XVIII. 


THEBAN. 

(All Egypt.) 









The Egyptian Chronology. 11 

A glance at the above plan will make the proposed 
Manetho reconstruction somewhat clearer. The last 
two columns present the lists of Eusebius and Afri- 
canus (we start with but two of the abbreviators, 
so as to make the hypothesis less confusing) ; the 
double column preceding exhibits the proposed 
Manetho reconstruction. 

Assured that neither Africanus nor Eusebius, 
whatever their bias, would intentionally misrepre- 
sent Manetho, it may be assumed that their contra- 
dictions simply reveal misapprehensions of Manetho's 
dynastic indications, and particularly of his explana- 
tory remarks. It is not likely that the work of 
Manetho's they quoted from contained any plan or 
chart of the Dynasties, even if Manetho had one for 
his personal use ; and only those who attempt to 
describe such facts without such a chart know how 
difficult it is to present them in a perspicuous 
way. 

We believe that the contradictions of the lists 
may be harmonized, if we may suppose that in his 
review of the period Manetho was endeavoring to 
make clear two features of the curious history, but 
that it proved difficult, so correlated were the two 
facts, to put them into language clear enough to 
prevent misapprehension. The two points it is sup- 
posed Manetho emphasized are: (1) that there was 
a continuous native line, Theban in its inspiration, 
all the way through the period from Dynasty XII. 



12 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

to Dynasty XVIII. ; and (2) that though the native 
line thus survived, it had a history of varying for- 
tunes, — a history marked by troubles from within 
and from without, — a history full of crises, which 
he sought to indicate by his dynastic divisions. 

To make our meaning clearer, let us suppose that 
Manetho's story, in outline at least, was something 
like this : — 

(1) That during the period of the so-called Dy- 
nasty XII. the native Theban line ruled all Egypt, 
and, as was really the case, without a challenge 
from any quarter. 

(2) That during Dynasty XIII. this was also true, 
except that the sovereignty, for some reason or 
other, passed to another Theban family, the House 
of the Sebekhoteps. 

(3) That the history of the native line thereafter 
was one of disaster. 

(4) That, first of all, the sovereignty of Lower 
Egypt was wrested from it by the Xoites, who 
during the so-called Dynasty XIV. confined the 
Thebans to Upper Egypt. 

(5) That it was while Egypt was thus divided 
that the Shepherds came and conquered. 

(6) That the Shepherd Era lasted through the 
three Dynasties, XV., XVL, and XVII. ; but that 
these dynastic divisions were intended by him simply 
to mark the three stages of the Shepherd rule, — 
viz., the first stage, marked as Dynasty XV., during 



The Egyptian Chronology. 13 

which the Shepherds occupied Lower Egypt, having 
swept the Xoites out of the way ; the second stage, 
marked as Dynasty XVI., during which the Shep- 
herds possessed themselves of Upper Egypt also, the 
Thebans having in their turn been driven out, and 
surviving in their Ethiopian Province, which was 
added to the crown in the time of Dynasty XII. ; 
and the third stage, marked as Dynasty XVII., dur- 
ing which time the Thebans, allowed to return, were 
recognized by the Shepherds as vassal princes, them- 
selves accepting the position, doubtless sullenly, 
but awaiting their opportunity to recover complete 
independence. 

Now, supposing this outline to have been substan- 
tially the original Manetho story, it is easy, scanning 
carefully the lists of the two abbreviators, to under- 
stand how each made his mistakes ; for, contradictory 
as their lists appear, they are really complements to 
each other. Each reports, though inaccurately and 
obscurely, a genuine Manetho statement. 

Thus, taking Eusebius first, it is evident that he 
grasped more accurately than Africanus Manetho's 
statement as to the continuity of the Theban line 
throughout the period ; for he set down in his list as 
" Theban " even the first two of the Shepherd Dynas- 
ties, XV. and XVI. But in the case of the other 
two dynasties, XIV. and XVIL, he was in all likeli- 
hood influenced by the explanations Manetho made 
as to the relations of parties in those Dynasties. 



14 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

He was probably, for example, led to consider the 
" Xo'ites " as the true Dynasty XIV. because of the 
emphasis put by Manetho on the shrunken sover- 
eignty of the Thebans, and possibly also on the per- 
sonal prowess of the Xo'ite Pharaohs ; and so he 
failed to note that the Theban line still survived in 
the Upper country, though with a shorn dominion. 

As respects Dynasty XVIL, he was probably led 
to report it a u Shepherd " Dynasty — in fact, his 
only Shepherd Dynasty — because, while undoubtedly 
Manetho mentioned the native line as surviving in 
that period (for African us quotes that), he probably 
laid stress yet more on the fact that in that Dynasty 
the Thebans were only vassals, and the Shepherds 
were the real rulers of Egypt. 

Turning next to Africanus' list, it is also easy, 
with the reconstructed Manetho story in mind, to 
explain its anomalous features. He, like Eusebius, 
accurately numbered the dynastic divisions ; but it 
is evident that he failed yet more than Eusebius in 
grasping their true significance. He indeed com- 
pletely overlooked the first Manetho point, — viz., the 
continuity of the Theban line throughout the Dy- 
nasties notwithstanding its troubles. He was more 
impressed with its troubles, more influenced by the 
emphasis Manetho put on his second point, — the 
contestants and the enemies of the Thebans. Like 
Eusebius, he made the Xo'ites to be the true Dy- 
nasty XIY., and doubtless for the same reasons. The 



The Egyptian Chronology. 15 

remaining three Dynasties he understood to be Shep- 
herd Dynasties, his very description of them sounding 
like a veritable quotation, — " Shepherds," " Other 
Shepherds," and " Other Shepherds and Thebans," — 
and because they were in reality the de facto, albeit 
in the view of an Egyptian priest not the de jure, 
Dynasties. 

But the reconstructed Manetho story not only 
helps us to see how Africanus and Eusebius under- 
stood, or rather misunderstood, their author, and 
serves to reconcile their otherwise inexplicable con- 
tradictions ; it will be found to be in harmony also 
with the other Manetho lists. The Josephus lists 
do not accentuate the dynastic divisions as clearly 
as those of Africanus and Eusebius, but they really 
yield the same story. Josephus was more concerned 
with Manetho's traditions respecting the Shepherds 
than with the chronology of the era. His object in 
quoting at all was to identify the Hyksos as the 
Hebrews. But the very traditions he quotes would 
show that the Shepherds' stay in Egypt was marked, 
as the reconstructed story would say, by stages ; that 
however sudden the initial movement was, the con- 
quest of the country was effected by degrees ; and 
that there was a marked difference in the attitude of 
the Shepherds, comparing the earlier and later stages, 
— that whereas they were at first merciless and des- 
potic, they changed erelong to another mood, and 
became more tolerant, nay, almost Egyptianized, 



16 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

though the Dynasty was hated none the less, and 
remained throughout a government of foreigners. 

The contradictions of the remaining lists need not 
detain us, as all of them were really compilations, 
gathered from the lists of Africanus, Eusebius, and 
Josephus. 

It may be added that the outline we are im- 
agining to have been the original Manetho story 
is not mere fancy ; for not only does it help us, as 
we have seen, to explain the confusing lists of the 
abb re viators, it is also in harmony with the very few 
hints the monuments furnish respecting the earlier 
and the later order of events. It has already been 
stated that the monuments certify that the earlier 
Pharaohs — such of them at least as are assignable 
to Dynasty XIII. — ruled over all Egypt. This was 
undoubtedly true as late on as the reign of Sebek- 
hotep IV. ; but there is no hint that succeeding 
Pharaohs were obeyed so far north as Tanis. Sebek- 
hotep V., for example, is traced no farther north 
than Bubastis ; from which one may fairly infer an 
already shrunken dominion. Traces of the subse- 
quent Pharaohs are met only in Upper Egypt, and 
at length only in Ethiopia. 1 

That Egypt was weakened and divided may be 
gathered from the exceedingly brief reigns of the 
Turin Papyrus ; for there is scarce one of them that 
is assigned a longer reign than four years, while 

1 Brugsch's History, vol. i. p. 192, also p. 387. 



The Egyptian Chronology. 17 

some of them were counted by months, and some 
even by days, — all of which betokens an era of dis- 
puted successions and probably assassinations. As 
to the Shepherd Era, it has also been stated that the 
monuments have nothing whatever to say of their 
coming, but they do have something to say of their 
going ; and the glimpse these important monumental 
texts give of the condition of things is precisely that 
of the reconstructed story. They bring to view a 
native line of princes that seems somehow to have 
survived ; but they are vassals, and the Shepherds 
are the masters of the land. 

Another argument in favor of the hypothesis is 
what may be styled the continuity of Egypt's his- 
tory and civilization, notwithstanding its apparent 
interruption by the Shepherd sway. The Egypt 
of Dynasty XVIII., as it emerges out of obscurity, 
though of course in some respects modified by its 
severe discipline, is the very same in every essential 
particular as the Egypt of the Usertesens and Sebek- 
hoteps of Dynasties XII. and XIII. Now, one can 
understand how such a survival would be possible 
after. a period of subjugation, however long, that did 
not really annihilate the native succession; but it 
would amount to a miracle if witnessed after even a 
period of 150 years of a foreign yoke that recog- 
nized no native line, to say nothing of the longer 
period which some would assign to the Shepherd 
rule. 



18 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

It is not altogether without reason, then, that we 
reconstruct the history of this obscurer section of our 
period on the basis of the reconstructed Manetho 
lists, and find the key to the problem's solution in the 
hypothesis of a continuous native line throughout 
the period, notwithstanding its varied fortunes. The 
monuments establish the synchronism of the latter 
part of Dynasty XVII. with the closing years of the 
Shepherds ; and if this is true, why may not it have 
been equally true of other parts ? May not the 
native line have maintained at least the semblance 
of continuity all through those dark ages ? It is, 
at any rate, possible in this way to explain what is 
otherwise inexplicable. 

But granted that the outline given of the history 
of this obscure section of our period may be claimed 
as more than hypothetical, the inquiry will still re- 
main as to its chronology. It may be asked, Is it 
possible to even conjecture with any show of reason 
as to the probable time covered by these Dynasties, 
XIII. to XVII.? We think it is. Much of course 
depends on the length that must be assigned to the 
Shepherd rule. This is prolonged to centuries by 
some, to be sure, but simply on the basis of the 
Manetho numbers. These numbers, however, re- 
specting the Shepherd Era particularly, are in in- 
extricable confusion. No two writers that have 
discussed them agree in their results. It is indeed 
unsafe to accept any numbers of the Manetho lists 



The Egyptian Chronology. 19 

without corroborative evidence. On the other hand, 
there is a possible clew as to the chronology of at 
least the Shepherd Dynasties, suggested by the very- 
position of the named Shepherd kings in the Manetho 
lists. 

It is true that the lists appear to contradict each 
other in this, as in so many other respects. For it 
will be observed that Africanus puts all six of the 
Shepherds in Dynasty XV. ; while Eusebius puts 
them — at least the four only whom he gives — in 
Dynasty XVII. But this is probably only another in- 
stance of the way in which the two abbreviators un- 
derstood Manetho's statements. All is easily enough 
explained if we may suppose that Manetho really 
intended the six names to cover the entire period of 
the Shepherd occupation, from its beginning to its 
end. If, therefore, we may suppose that this is what 
Manetho meant, then Africanus was right in putting 
the beginning of the list in Dynasty XV., but erred 
when he put all six of the list in that Dynasty. The 
monuments prove that one of them, at any rate, 
Apepi, belonged to the Seventeenth Dynasty ; for he 
was a contemporary of the Rasekenen with whom 
began the war of liberation. What Manetho prob- 
ably said was that the Shepherd rule in its relation 
to the native line could be distinguished by three 
stages, important enough to be marked off as 
Dynasties, and that their government was formally 
erected in Dynasty XV., under Salatis, the first 



20 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

Shepherd Pharaoh. He probably added that he was 
succeeded by the five names that followed, — mean- 
ing, not that they all belonged to Dynasty XV., but 
that the rest of the Shepherd rule was covered by 
those names. 

That Eusebius put the names in Dynasty XVII. 
followed of course from his conception of that Dynasty 
as the only Shepherd Dynasty. But it is possible, 
also, that he would be justified by the facts in put- 
ting even Salatis in Dynasty XVII. We are not to 
imagine that Dynasties XY. and XYI. were long. 
It is altogether likely that they were brief. The 
dynastic division was intended to mark not so much 
the time they occupied as the relative position of 
the Shepherds and the native line throughout the 
era. All the traditions suggest that the invasion of 
Egypt was sudden at the start, and rapid enough in 
its progress, until the galling yoke was riveted on the 
whole land. Salatis would be sure to establish his 
seat at Memphis as soon as possible. Having done 
that, and so secured his rear, he would be able to 
advance to the conquest of Upper Egypt. This ac- 
complished, he would not be likely to remain there, 
long, and as a consequence it is not likely that the 
banished princes would be long kept out of Upper 
Egypt. What would be more natural than for them 
very soon to cross the border, and gradually creep 
down the river, and so inaugurate that period of col- 
lisions, of which tradition speaks, which ended in 



The Egyptian Chronology. 21 

mutual concessions and at last in recognition, — the 
Shepherds contenting themselves with a suzerainty 
of the Upper country, and the native line accepting 
the position of vassals, until the end came. It is not 
impossible, therefore, that the king who conquered 
Lower Egypt was the same that conquered Upper 
Egypt also, and that he even survived into the so- 
called Dynasty XVII. It may help us to understand 
why Eusebius made but the one Shepherd Dynasty. 
He probably gathered from Manetho's statement 
that the time occupied by Dynasties XV. and XVI. 
was inconsiderable, and that, though the Shepherds 
were in the country, the Thebans during those two 
earlier stages of the occupation did not succumb to 
Salatis, but kept up the succession, though confined 
in Dynasty XV. to Upper Egypt, and in Dynasty 
XVI. to Ethiopia. He also gathered that at length 
the Thebans found it expedient to acknowledge Sala- 
tis, and so inaugurated the third stage, marked as 
Dynasty XVII. , which Eusebius inferred could prop- 
erly enough be called a Shepherd Dynasty, not only 
because it was a de facto government, as were the 
other two stages indeed, but because it was acqui- 
esced in by the princes of Egypt themselves and for 
so long a period. It cannot but be observed how 
the supposition harmonizes all the facts of the 
case. 

Eeasoning in this way, then, it is evident that 
the major part of the period covered by the six 



22 Abraham j Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

reigns * could easily enough be assigned to Dynasty 
XVII. 2 

If this clew, then, furnished by the very contradic- 
tions of the Manetho lists, be accepted, it would sug- 
gest that the Shepherd Era may be carried back from 
the date of the Expulsion scarcely farther than the 
foundation of the government by the first of the 
six. names Manetho has preserved, the time occupied 
by the conquest up to the occupation of Memphis 
being at most but a few years. 

1 Why did Eusebius report but four names ? The answer may probably 
be found in the fact that his last name is " Apepi ; " for while six of the Mane- 
tho lists give six names, five out of the six make Apepi the fourth king. The 
inference therefore is not unfair, that there were two, if not three kings between 
the Apepi who was contemporary with the Kasekenen of the " Sallier Papy- 
rus " and the Shepherd who was Aahmes' contemporary. 

It is also probable that, discussing the war of liberation, Manetho stated 
that it began under Apepi ; and he probably referred to Apepi as the last great 
Shepherd king, — the last whose sway was undisputed, or as the Shepherd in 
whose reign the resistance began which issued in Egypt's freedom. And 
Eusebius may have thence inferred that the Dynasty ended with him. The 
shorter lists probably looked on the commencement, and the longer, the end of 
the liberation conflict, as the proper closing-point of the Dynasty. 

2 That Eusebius calls the Shepherds " Phoenicians," is doubtless a remi- 
niscence of a genuine Manetho statement, but another instance of misappre- 
hension or of inaccurate reporting. The Shepherds were, it is more than 
probable, Semitics. The great migration from the world's cradle which 
modern writers believe issued in the Shepherd Invasion of Egypt, can be 
best explained, as Dr. Brugsch does, as Semitic in its inspiration. But it can 
readily be understood how the movement, as it swept along, dragged with it 
fragments of other peoples found in its path, and sought helpers wherever they 
could be found. The Phoenicians became very early the world's carriers, so 
that there would be nothing unlikely in the supposition that they were pressed 
into the service of the Semitics and helped them by sea and by land. So 
valuable indeed may have been their assistance, that to many they may have 
seemed the most important section of the invaders. And Manetho may have 
so emphasized what the Phoenicians did, that Eusebius was misled thereby as 
to the ethnic character of the Shepherds themselves. 



The Egyptian Chronology. 23 

But this clew does not remain unsupported. It is 
corroborated, indeed, in a very remarkable way by a 
monumental time-period of the Shepherd Era, which 
was discovered a few years ago at Tanis. 

It is certainly an interesting circumstance to find 
any era at all mentioned on the monuments ; for 
this one, if such it be, is the only one known. The 
Egyptians, as far as known, computed time simply 
by the regnal periods of their sovereigns, not by 
eras. It is consequently more curious still that the 
only instance of an era thus far discovered should 
have respect to the Shepherds. 

It is found on a tablet at present in the Boulak 
Museum. 1 The tablet is a memorial stone which was 
originally set up in the sanctuary of the Great Tem- 
ple at Tanis by an Egyptian courtier, named Seti, at 
the instance of Kameses II., and as an act of homage 
on the king's part to his father. 

Unfortunately, the inscription does not state the 
year of Rameses II. when the stone was dedicated. 
It may have been intended to commemorate his 
father's death, and so have been set up in the first 
year of his sole reign ; or it may have been set up in 
his fifth year, — the date of his Asiatic campaign, 
when, as is known, he was in Tanis, — inasmuch as 
the tablet refers to a visit of the king to Tanis. There 

1 For a full account of the tablet, with Dr. Birch's translation, see " Rec- 
ords of the Past," vol. iv. p. 33 ; also, Chabas in the " Zeitschrift " for 1865 ; 
also, Mariette's " La Stele de Tan 400," and De Rouge, " Rev. Arch.," Feb., 
1864. 



24 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

is therefore some uncertainty, amounting however 
to a few years only, as to that end of the era men- 
tioned on the tablet. The tablet is dated " the 
fourth day of the month Mesori [i. e., the twelfth 
month] of the four hundredth year of the king of 
the Upper and Lower country, SeUaa-pehti-ncb-ti." 
This name is commonly abbreviated to " Set-neb- 
pehti," or " Set-neb/' and the era spoken of as the 
" Set Era." No wonder that Brugsch says 1 that 
this " must ever continue to be the most wonderful 
memorial stone " of the many recovered from the 
temple-city; for the " Set-neb-pehti," from whose 
reign the era dates, can be none other than a Shep- 
herd king. This is conceded by all Egyptologists; 
and as is also agreed upon by most of them, he can 
only be identified with the " Set Shalt " of another 
Shepherd monument discovered by Marie tte, and he 
can be none other than " Salatis," the first of the six 
Manetho Shepherds. 2 

1 History, vol. ii. p. 94. 

2 See Canon Cook in " Speaker's Com.," vol. i. p. 448. There can be no 
doubt that " Salatis " is a Greek transcription of the original Semitic " Shalt " 
or " Shalati," the " powerful " or " powerful ruler." It is, of course, to him 
alone that can be referred the inscription found by Mariette on a Tanis statue, 
" Set Shalti, beloved of Sutech, lord of Avaris." 

Now, as Canon Cook suggests, the " Set-neb-pehti " (i. e., " Set, lord of 
might " or " powerful lord ") of the Tanis tablet was probably the Egyptian 
translation of the Semitic name which he adopted for his second cartouche, 
"Set Shalti" being the first cartouche name. While, therefore, all seems 
conjectural, all is not mere assumption. At any rate, both names mean the 
same thing, and it is only to the first of the six Shepherd kings that the name 
of the Tanis tablet can by any possibility be referred. There would be a pro- 
priety in the first Shepherd king's adoption of the name " Set," as the era to 
which it gave a name probably coincided, as Canon Cook says, with the 



The Egyptian Chronology. 25 

If the exceptional character of the dating of such 
a Rameses tablet seems inexplicable, we are to re- 
member that it was set up at Tanis. 

Tanis was altogether associated with the Shepherds 
by the Egyptians. While not really founded as a 
new town by them, as a famous passage in the Book 
of Numbers would lead one to surmise, the spot hav- 
ing been occupied by sovereigns of Dynasties XII. 
and XIII. and possibly before, 1 the Shepherds un- 
doubtedly adopted it as an important strategic point, 
and so added to or rebuilt it that it became virtually 
a new city. It was their principal town, 2 and was so 
identified with them that after they evacuated it, it 
was dismantled, 3 and from that time and all through 
Dynasty XVIII. it was entirely ignored by Egypt's 
sovereigns, and only again became a great city and 
a royal residence with the rise of Dynasty XIX. It 
became the favorite capital of Rameses II. It would 
seem, moreover, that its association with the Shep- 
herds was never quite forgotten ; nay, that the in- 
habitants of the region had preserved the Shepherd 
traditions. It certainly shows the influence of these 
traditions, that the sovereigns of the Nineteenth 
Dynasty should have so honored the Shepherds' God 
as to give his name a place in a royal cartouche. It 

" formal recognition of the god Set as the chief object of worship to the Dy- 
nasty." It is in this way that Egyptologists identify " Set neb pehti " as 
" Salatis," the first king. 

1 Maspero's Histoire, p. 100. 2 Idem, p. 105. 

3 Idem, p. 171 and p. 206. 



26 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

was a novelty in Egypt for the son of a native sov- 
ereign to be called Seti, so that the succession em- 
braced a Seti I. and a Seti II. and a Prince Seti; 
and this is the more remarkable because it is known 
that the naming was exceedingly repugnant to the 
Theban priests. 

The wonder therefore diminishes that, as the 
chance discovery shows, a prince of the royal fam- 
ily, himself named Seti, commemorating at his sov- 
ereign's command the deceased Seti, the king's 
father, and erecting the memorial at Tanis, should 
have dated it with the traditional Shepherd Era. 
Undoubtedly, we may fairly gather from the circum- 
stance that the Shepherd Era yet survived at Tanis 
and was in popular use there, or at any rate that it 
could be gathered from the royal registers and with 
sufficient accuracy to be dated to a month and a 
day! 1 




Fig. 1. 



ro\ 



1 As an incidental confirmation of the fact that the " Set Era" was known 
to the Egyptians, and that they looked upon the " Set neb pehti " of the Tanis 
tablet as the representative Shepherd king, it may be mentioned that when 
Aahmes, Egypt's liberator, wanted a throne name, 
he curiously enough took that of " 7?a-neb-pehti " 
(Eig. 1). It is as though he retorted to the 
Shepherds just thrust out, and who looked on 
" ASe£-neb-pehti " as their great ancestor: "I de- 
throne your Set and put Ra in his place, and so 
begin a new era." 

It may be regarded as a further incidental 

confirmation of the knowledge of the era as still 

surviving at Tanis, that Barneses L, the founder 

of Dynasty XIX., who sustained intimate relations 

with the town, should also have taken for his throne name a simple variation 

of Aahmes', and adopted it in his cartouche (Fig. 2), " Ra-men-pehti." Like 



<£l^ 



Fig. 2. 



The Egyptian Chronology. 27 

But granted that the dating of the tablet was, 
as Brugsch regards it, " a survival of a new method 
of reckoning first introduced by the Hyksos," and 
granted that the " Set-neb-pehti " was none other 
than the " Set Shalt " of Marie tte's monument and 
the " Salatis " of the Manetho lists, then it follows 
that but 400 years elapsed between Salatis and 
Kameses II. 

The initial year of the " Set Era " would of course 
be the year when Salatis assumed the style of an 
Egyptian Pharaoh, — a date surely important enough 
to mark the beginning of an era ; and to fix its 
precise place, therefore, in the Egyptian chronology 
becomes a very simple arithmetical problem. It is 
but needful to subtract from the 400 years the 
amount of the interval between the Expulsion and 
the first or the fifth year of Rameses II. to obtain 
a period of about 150 years for the Shepherd rule, 
— a period which is not too short nor yet too long 
for the six named kings. 

As to the time that must be allowed for the inva- 
sion and conquest, — i. e., up to the establishment of 
a formal government at Memphis, — it is impossible 

Aahmes, Rameses sought to emphasize "Ra" instead of the Shepherds' 
"Set;" but Aahmes had called him "ne&-pehti" ("lord of might"), and so, 
for distinction's sake, Rameses called him " »zerc-pehti" (" firm " or "estab- 
lished in might"). Such facts will appear more to the point, probably, when 
it is discovered that these hieroglyphs occur in no other known royal cartouche 
up to that time, nor afterwards until Dynasty XXIII., which was a " Tanite " 
House, and so may similarly be construed as a reminiscence of its Shepherd 
associations. 



28 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

at present to reach any assured conclusion. It must 
have been short \ for all the traditions make the 
movement rapid and decisive. It undoubtedly took 
some time not only to seize the strategic points of 
the Delta, but to provide for keeping them against 
surprises. Still, no great length of time was needed 
for this. Possibly the Numbers passage already al- 
luded to * may afford the best time-indication of this 
interval; for in the mind of the sacred author the one 
town, Hebron, certainly bore some relation to the 
other town, Zoan. The passage does not necessarily 
suggest, as some have inferred from it, that the Shep- 
herds were Hittites ; but it probably referred to the 
fact that the founding of Hebron and the rebuilding 
of Zoan were the first-fruits of one and the same mi- 
gration. It is now the fashion to regard the Hyksos 
invasion as in its inspiration a migration, and, accord- 
ing to Brugsch and most Egyptologists, a Semitic one. 
But though the wave was, as is likely, a Semitic 
movement, it seems to have brought in its train 
tribes of other peoples, particularly Hittites and 
Phoenicians. 2 It is probable that the pastoral Semi- 
tics found it necessary to use the Phoenicians as car- 
riers and the Hittites as builders. It looks as though 
some of the Hittites stopped in Southern Palestine, 
and settled where Abraham met them subsequently, 
— at Hebron, which they founded. 

1 Num. xiii. 22. 

2 See note 2 on page 22. 



The Egyptian Chronology. 29 

Others of them seem to have gone on with the 
Semitics ; and these it may have been who built, or 
rather rebuilt, for the Shepherds the " Zoan " of the 
Numbers passage. So interpreted, the passage would 
suggest that some seven years elapsed after the 
Shepherds entered Egypt before they felt it safe to 
act as though they had come to stay. 

At any rate, seven years would be ample, and ten 
years most probably a long time, to allow for the in- 
terval before the formal assumption by Salatis of the 
style of an Egyptian king. 

In this way it is easy to see that the entire Shep- 
herd period, comprising both the conquest and the 
rule, may not have been more than 160 years. 

It may be added^ by way of confirmation of the cor- 
rectness of the conclusions reached, that this " Set 
Era " of the Tanis tablet can be paralleled by a 
Hebrew time-period which covers almost the same 
ground. It will be found possible indeed, before 
we are through, to harmonize the chronological data 
both of the monuments and of the Bible, and in so 
remarkable a way as to justify an appeal to scholars 
not unnecessarily to extend a possible shorter chro- 
nology to a longer one, which is, to say the least, 
equally hypothetical. 

As to the time covered by Dynasties XIII. and 
XIV ., there is no means at present of deciding ; for 
the indications which some would gather from the 
fragments of the Turin Papyrus are purely hypothe- 



30. Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

tical, 1 and the Manetho numbers are untrustworthy. 
But happily this question does not directly bear on 
the special inquiry of these lectures, which is to 
ascertain the position of the Hebrews in Egypt's 
history. 

It will be enough to discover in the sequel, from a 
comparison of the Hebrew and Egyptian traditions, 
that both chronologies substantially agree in making 
the interval between the birth of Abraham and the 
Exodus a little more than 500 years ; and so the 
question as to the time-period of Dynasties XIII. 
and XIV. may be dismissed for the present, though 
we are sure that a fair discussion would lead to a far 
shorter chronology for them than is often claimed. 

1 Aside from the very fragmentary character of this important manuscript, 
it is not certain how its divisions are to be understood. Dr. Brugsch (His- 
tory, vol. i. p. 36) affirms that " its long series of kings was arranged by the 
author according to his own ideas and views," and that, " as the case stands, no 
mortal man possesses the means of removing the difficulties which are in- 
separable from the attempt to restore the original list of kings from the 
fragments of the Turin Papyrus." 



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32 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 



LECTURE II. 

THE HEBREW CHRONOLOGY. 

THE subject of this lecture has been often dealt 
with as simply a chapter in the Bible's chro- 
nology, and without any special reference to its 
possible bearing on the Egyptian view of the era. 
But numerous monumental " finds " have made it 
scarcely possible to study the history of the Hebrews 
in Egypt as narrated by the sacred writer without 
comparing it with the statements of the Egyptian 
scribes. In truth, the interest of the majority of 
students of ancient Egypt has originated in the 
Biblical relations of the theme. 

Possibly the most diligent student of the era before 
us has been Lepsius, — a name that Egyptologists pro- 
nounce with reverence. His labors have had their 
reward, in that the student of all time, however he 
may differ from him, must consult his works. The 
historical data collected by him are exhaustive and 
accurate, and will long survive, notwithstanding that 
his theory has already become obsolete. 

It will be impossible to discuss the many questions 
preliminary to the present inquiry that beset the 



The Hebrew Chronology. 33 

investigator, — such as, e. g., the question of the value 
of the Hebrew, as compared with the Greek and 
other versions of the Old Testament. It may be 
said, however, that for the purpose of these lectures 
the Hebrew has been adopted as the standard text, 
but not to the exclusion of the other versions for 
reference and comparison. Aside from any pre- 
possession (some may call it prejudice) one may 
have respecting the authority of the Hebrew Old 
Testament, the sequel will show that it is as easy, 
nay easier, to harmonize the Egyptian story, at least 
of the period under review, with the time-indications 
of the Hebrew text, as would be the case were any 
other text adopted as the standard. 

It may also be premised that if difficulties were 
met in attempting to reconstruct the monumental 
chronology of our period, difficulties equally great 
will be found in attempting to reconstruct the Old 
Testament view of it. The Hebrew chronology is, 
and remains, a stubborn problem. There are, it is 
true, interpretations of the Scripture time-indications 
for which plausible arguments may be adduced ; but 
no one of them has as yet commanded universal 
acceptance, and it looks as though this may be the 
case for some time to come. It can scarcely be 
hoped that any revision of the received Hebrew 
text, now called for, would seriously modify the 
Pentateuchal time-indications; so that the problem 
is likely to remain a question of interpretation. 






34 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

It will be for future monumental "finds" to de- 
cide what the sacred writer meant by his time- 
indications. 

The Scripture time-indications that have to do 
with our period are presented in the two forms 
of (1) genealogical indications, and (2) a definite 
time-period. 

As to the genealogical indications, there are two 
features that very soon impress themselves on the 
investigator: (1) that, according to the Hebrew 
registers, only a generation or two at most inter- 
vened between the death of Joseph and the birth 
of Moses ; and (2) the jealous care with which the 
record guards this fact, and disallows its being ex- 
plained away. 

Thus, e. g., the writer not only tells us that Moses 
was a son of Amram, who was a grandson of Levi, 
but that his mother Jochebed was " a daughter of 
Levi," * — a statement which, taken literally, would 
of course ally her to the generation preceding her 
husband's ; so that one might therefore reasonably 
infer that by a " daughter " of Levi was simply 
intended to be understood a female scion of Levi's 
house. But the narrator forestalls any such in- 
ference, and tells us explicitly that we are to un- 
derstand " a daughter of Levi " as literally such, 
inasmuch as Jochebed, whom Amram took for wife, 
was really his aunt, or, as the narrator puts it, " his 

i Ex. ii. 1. 



The Hebrew Chronology. 35 

father's sister ; " 1 so that, as such, she must have 
been really Levi's daughter. 

It follows, therefore, that Moses, on his mother's 
side at least, was really a grandson of Levi, and 
consequently that in this way but four generations 
intervened between him and Abraham. This re- 
mains so, moreover, notwithstanding another curious 
fact which the tables yield, — that in the case of 
his brother Aaron's wife, Elishaba, who was of the 
house of Judah, seven generations really intervened 
between Abraham and herself. 2 

Such facts certainly show us that the number of 
generations one may be able to count is no indica- 
tion by itself of the length of the period covered 
by them. Generations may be, and are, longer or 
shorter according to circumstances, and can only be 
of chronological importance when the genealogical 
tree gives a basis for calculating the length of the 
generations. The genealogical indications of the 
Levitical registers, therefore, while invaluable for cor- 
roborative purposes, are not sufficient of themselves 
to enable us to reconstruct the Bible chronology. 
A definite time-period is consequently a necessity 
for this purpose ; and it is given, but unfortunately in 
such a way as to make it somewhat uncertain how 
we are to understand it. 

(1) The period is first mentioned in the story of 

1 Ex. vi. 20. 

2 Compare Ex. vi. 33 and Ruth iv. 19. 



36 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

Abraham (Gen. xv. 13-16). It is there mentioned 
as a prediction. 

13. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that 
thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not their 's, 
and shall serve them ; and they shall afflict them four hun- 
dred years ; 

14. And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will 
I judge : and afterward shall they come out with great 
substance. 

15. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace ; thou 
shalt be buried in a good old age. 

16. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither 
again : for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. 

God promised Abram that he should have a nu- 
merous posterity ; " and he believed in the Lord, 
and he counted it to him for righteousness." And it 
was because of this faith of his that God uttered the 
special prediction, already recited, respecting Abram 
and his posterity. 

(2) The time-period next occurs in the Exodus 
story (Ex. xii. 40, 41, 51), where it is not only 
twice mentioned, but with a special emphasis : — 

40. Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who 
dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. 

41. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred 
and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, 
that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of 
Egypt. 

51. And it came to pass the selfsame day, that the Lord 
did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by 
their armies. 



The Hebrew Chronology. 37 

(3) The next time the period is met, is in the 
New Testament (Acts vii. 6), in a speech of Stephen's, 
who, while rehearsing before the Council the history 
of the Hebrew people, naturally referred to God's 
promise to Abram of a numerous posterity, and 
therefore quoted the Genesis prediction with its time- 
period, though he really gives but a summary of the 
passage : — 

6. And God spake on this wise, That his seed should 
sojourn in a strange land ; and that they should bring them 
into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years. 

(4) The last time the period occurs, is in an ar- 
gument of Saint Paul's (Gal. iii. 17). Paul was main- 
taining the thesis that "justification is by faith and 
not by works of the law;" and referring to the fact 
that Abraham himself was a believer, and that God 
made the " covenant of promise " with him as such, 
argued thence, that nothing could ever militate 
against that irrevocable covenant, and, more partic- 
ularly, that the law of Moses, subsequently given, 
could not, nor was it intended to, come between a 
believer and God : — 

17. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed 
before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred 
and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make 
the promise of none effect. 

Though introduced therefore in this incidental 
way, the passage itself shows that Saint Paul had in 



38 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

mind both the Genesis prediction and the Exodus 
fulfilment; and that though he used the number 430, 
he did not profess to use it with any precision as to 
details. 

Taking the four passages, then, in which the time- 
period occurs, and bearing in mind their connec- 
tions, it is easy to see that the problem suggested by 
them really divides itself into two parts : (1) What 
is the time-period indicated? and (2) How is it to be 
measured ? 

The difficulty of answering both questions was 
very early felt. The " Seventy " felt it; for in trans- 
lating the Exodus passage, they even modified the 
received text, by making it read (Ex. xii. 40) : 
" Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who 
dwelt in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan 
was four hundred and thirty years." The difficulty 
has, moreover, survived to the present time. There 
are those, indeed, who regard the statements and 
numbers of the four passages as so contradictory 
as to be worthless. Lepsius, e. g., rejected the 
number 430. In the dedication of his work on 
chronology 1 to Baron Bunsen, he explicitly men- 
tions his " entire abandonment of it," though he 
also deprecates any reflection on the authority of the 
Old Testament such a course might imply. While 
thus rejecting the number 430 he puts emphasis on 

1 A translation is to be found in Part II. of his " Egypt, Ethiopia, and 
Sinai," — a volume of Bonn's Antiquarian Library. See pp. 362, 403. 



The Hebrew Chronology. 39 

" the Levitical registers of generations, as a far 
more certain guide," and adds : " If we compare 
the number of generations in this period, we shall 
find that there were only four for four centuries." 

In view, however, of the undoubted genuineness 
of both the Genesis and Exodus passages, it would 
seem more philosophical to acknowledge the diffi- 
culty, for the moment, of reconciling them, than 
summarily to pronounce against the authority of 
both or either of them. And surely any possible 
interpretation of the passages that would harmonize 
them may be accepted, though with reserve, and 
thus relieve one of the need of rejecting them. 

Allusion has just been made to the way in which 
the " Seventy" attempted to solve the problem, — viz., 
by adding what is really an explanatory clause. To 
be sure, no addition to the text that would imply it 
to be a part of Holy Scripture can be defended on 
critical grounds. It can be looked upon only as a 
gloss. Nevertheless, it is true that the view of the 
" Seventy " is in general harmony with Saint Paul's 
view of the period; for undoubtedly he dates the 
period from the " covenant of promise," and conse- 
quently must have included in it the whole history 
of Abraham thereafter, as well as the history of the 
Hebrews, his descendants, up to the time of the erec- 
tion of the Hebrew commonwealth. 

With this general view of the " Seventy " and of 
Saint Paul it is easy enough to agree, and for a 



40 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

number of reasons. It is evident, e. g., comparing 
the Old Testament forms of the period, that the 
time-statement of the prediction was not intended 
to be exact, but a general statement sufficiently 
accurate for its purpose. The Exodus statement, on 
the contrary, professes on its very face to be exact. 
The prediction is indeed uttered in two forms that 
serve to complete and explain each other. 

It is admitted that any one reading the Genesis 
passage by itself would be sure to understand its 
" four hundred years " to be intended as an exact 
period, and to explain its " fourth generation " as 
but saying the same thing in another form ; but this 
would only be the case as long as it remained a 
prediction. When the prediction was fulfilled, and 
so the exact time-period known and recorded, as it 
is in the Exodus passage, then the most natural 
inference respecting the two texts would be that 
stated, — viz. that in the earlier text an indefinite 
was given for a definite period, and in the later the 
statement was intended to be exact. In the Genesis 
passage the period is simply counted by generations ; 
while in the Exodus passage it is counted not only 
by years, but to a day. 

One can hardly fail to observe what a point the 
Exodus narrator makes of his number, not only 
twice repeating it, but twice asserting that the four 
hundred and thirtieth year was completed on the 
very day of the Exodus. 



The Hebrew Chronology. 41 

Thus interpreting the Old Testament forms of the 
period, the New Testament forms of it need occasion 
but little trouble. Stephen and Paul both had suf- 
ficient justification in quoting, the one the Genesis, 
and the other the Exodus, time-indication. Either 
number would have been sufficiently accurate for 
their purposes. Saint Paul, indeed, while adopting 
the Exodus number, uses it not with precision 
as to details. It follows, therefore, that the Old 
Testament 430-year time-period that came to an 
end on the very day of the Exodus, instead of 
being discarded, is to be accepted as the veri- 
table measure of time the Bible has given where- 
with to thread our way back from the date of the 
Exodus. 

But the second element of the problem then pre- 
sents itself. Granted that the Old Testament time- 
period with which we are concerned is the number 
430, and granted that it came to an end on the day 
of the Exodus, the question arises, What is the point 
of departure for the period ? 

The difficulty of satisfactorily answering this ques- 
tion is confessedly great ; for undoubtedly a study 
simply of the two passages containing the prediction 
and the fulfilment would leave the impression that 
the time-period is to be dated from Israel's descent 
to Egypt. But such a conclusion would very soon 
be challenged by what may be styled another equally 
Scriptural conclusion. Thus Saint Paul, it is certain, 



42 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

would require us to date it from Abraham's day. 
Moreover, aside from an Apostle's authority on the 
subject, — which in this particular instance, other 
things being equal, one may believe was not intended 
to be asserted, — there is a very grave difficulty oc- 
casioned by the Levitical registers. For if the Ex- 
odus passage must be regarded as making Israel's 
sojourn in Egypt to have been 430 years, the regis- 
ters would deny this, and assert that Jacob and his 
descendants could not have sojourned in Egypt so 
long. 

These registers indeed create the difficulty in two 
forms : (1) they show that only four generations, 
that could cover about 400 years, intervened be- 
tween Moses and Abraham ; and (2) the specific time- 
indications of the generations given in the registers 
themselves make it impossible to adjust these genera- 
tions to a 430-year period dated from Israel's descent 
to Egypt. 1 

1 It is difficult to adjust the time-period, even when dated from Abraham's 
day, to the few generations between Jacob and Moses. Canon Cook (" Speak- 
er's Commentary," vol. i. p. 301), referring to the line through Jochebed, 
says that " it involves two miracles for which there is no authority in Scrip- 
ture, — viz., that Levi must have been ninety-five when Jochebed was born, and 
Jochebed eighty-five when Moses was born." The Canon doubtless exagger- 
ates the difficulty ; for no miracle was required in Jacob's case, who was 
ninety-one when Joseph was born. At the same time all would admit that 
such cases are exceptional ; and all must perceive how serious the problem be- 
comes if it is deemed needful to add some two centuries more to the interval. 
And if some still imagine, as a way out of the difficulty, that some links of the 
chain in this genealogy, as in others of Holy Scripture, may have been omitted, 
such a suggestion could hardly be entertained in the present case, in view of 
the precision with which the sacred writer establishes the exact relationship of 
all the parties concerned. 



The Hebrew Chronology. 43 

These registers at first sight seem to be utterly in- 
different about the chronology of the era ; but a closer 
examination shows how curiously the historian does, 
after all, give sufficient time-data to enable one to 
form an idea of the lapse of time, — sufficient at least 
for all needful purposes. Any one who attempts to 
draw out in a scheme the time-indications referred to 
will be interested in discovering what checks the 
Pentateuch furnishes on any attempt unduly to pro- 
long the period. Keference has just been made to 
the four generations only, e. g., that are enumerated 
between Abraham and Moses, just as the Genesis 
passage predicted. But the registers mention a sec- 
ond line from Moses back to Abraham, this time 
through his father instead of his mother; and, 
what is an impressive fact to the investigator, in 
this line the length of each life in the chain is given. 
The writer tells how Levi lived 137 years ; Kohath, 
his son, 133 ; and Amram, his son and Moses' father, 
137. Taking now these simple elements, the line 
through Moses' father as well as that through his 
mother, let any one attempt therefrom to make the 
family-tree, and he will soon discover the utter im- 
possibility of spreading these generations with their 
time-indications over a period of 430 years, if it 
must be dated from Jacob's or Joseph's descent to 
Egypt. 

In this way the Exodus passage would seem to be 
contradicted not only by Saint Paul, who quotes its 



44 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

number and dates it from Abraham's day, but by 
the genealogical indications of the Pentateuch. Ac- 
cordingly, if the Exodus passage must be interpreted 
as teaching that the 430-year period is to be dated 
from Israel's descent to Egypt, the difficulty would 
appear insuperable. It may be added that the diffi- 
culty would be yet more emphasized to find that a 
comparison such as Lepsius has instituted 1 between 
the genealogical indications already referred to and 
other co-ordinate indications found in extra-Penta- 
teuchal registers serve only to establish beyond con- 
tradiction the brevity of the interval between Jacob 
and Moses. 

There is a necessity, therefore, it must be clear, to 
revise the interpretation of the Exodus passage so as 
to bring it into harmony with the genealogical time- 
indications of the Pentateuch, and likewise with Saint 
Paul's understanding of the time-period. In some 
way it must be interpreted, as the "Seventy" be- 
lieved, to cover a Canaanitish as well as an Egyptian 
sojourn. And if the question be asked, Is this pos- 
sible ? the reply may at once be made, It is possible. 
For while without Saint Paul's hint it might not have 
been discovered, it is yet true that a careful con- 
sideration of the two Pentateuch passages will show 
that not without reason did Saint Paul carry the 
time-period back to Abraham's day. 

The key to the solution may be found, we imagine, 

1 Lepsius' Egypt, etc., p. 458. 



The Hebrew Chronology. 45 

in the Genesis passage, where the time-period seems 
to refer to Abram himself and his seed. This may 
be gathered not only from the fact that the " four 
hundred years" of the thirteenth verse must be the 
same time-period as that referred to in the sixteenth 
verse as to come to an end " in the fourth genera- 
tion," but because God was evidently dealing with 
Abraham as the representative of his posterity. 

Some may perchance demur at this ; but one can- 
not long dwell on the place of Abraham in the Bible 
without observing that in all the divine transactions 
with him God regarded him as a representative be- 
liever. He and his seed are contemplated as so com- 
pletely one that their history is a part of his and his 
a part of theirs. Moreover, as respects the imme- 
diate point before us, can one help observing how 
wonderfully the history of the Hebrews in Egypt 
reflected that of Abram ? He went down to Egypt, 
and sojourned there, and was afflicted there, and was 
sent away too, at the last, after God had plagued 
Pharaoh's house because of him, and sent away 
with much substance. Nay more, God seems to 
lay stress on the fact that the Hebrews in Egypt 
were to be strangers in a strange land, just as Abram 
himself at that very moment was a sojourner in a 
land not yet in possession, — a suggestion that not 
only completes the parallel, but seems to hint that 
the period mentioned was intended to cover both 
sojourns. Is not it possible to paraphrase the 



46 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

Genesis prediction with this idea in mind, and so 
make clearer what it was probably intended to in- 
clude ? It may be paraphrased thus : " This cove- 
nant I make not with thyself alone. Because of thy 
faith in my promise of a numerous posterity, I in- 
clude that seed of thine in this covenant. And to 
show how true this is, I will foretell something of the 
days to come. Thou shalt become a great multitude. 
The history of thy seed shall be a repetition of thine. 
Thou hast been a stranger in this land since the day 
thou crossed the Eiver ; so shall thy seed be a stranger 
in a land not theirs. Even thy history in Egypt 
shall be repeated in that of thy seed. Thy seed shall 
be a stranger in that very land. Thou wast afflicted 
there ; so shall thy seed be. I judged Pharaoh and 
plagued him because of thee ; so will I judge Egypt 
because of thy seed. Pharaoh sent thee away ; so will 
he thrust out thy seed. And as thou wentest out with 
substance, so also shall it be with thy seed; they 
shall not go out thence empty-handed. When will 
all this occur, dost thou ask ? The end will not be in 
thy day. Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; 
yea, be buried in a good old age. Some four gen- 
erations of thy seed must intervene before all shall 
be fulfilled. This history of thee and thine — this 
history of sojourn in a strange land and of perse- 
cution, that has characterized thy life and will be 
repeated in that of thy seed — - will cover some four 
hundred years ; but at the end of this long period, 



The Hebrew Chronology. 47 

long after thou hast fallen on sleep, thy seed shall 
come out of the land of their sojourning, and with 
great substance. Moreover, by that time the Amo- 
rites will be ripe for vengeance. Their iniquity is 
not now full." 

Is such a paraphrase unfair ? It may at least be 
claimed for it that it is in harmony with the headship 
and representative character of Abraham, — a view 
that is as much a New as an Old Testament idea. 
It is, at any rate, a possible interpretation of the Gen- 
esis passage. The prediction was suggested by the 
very nature of the covenant God was at that moment 
entering into with Abram. The covenant included 
him and his seed ; and the prediction, while forecast- 
ing the history of his seed, regards that history as 
his. The sixteenth verse particularly states that that 
seed, yet in his loins when the prediction was uttered, 
should "come hither again ;" thus hinting that the 
time that should elapse was to be dated from Abram's 
own day. 

This interpretation of the prediction is, moreover, 
not out of harmony with the Exodus passage as it 
can be interpreted ; for it is possible to regard 
"the children of Israel" of the Exodus passage as 
simply a parallelism for " the seed of Abraham " of 
the Genesis prediction. They are called in Exodus 
u the children of Israel " because that had come to 
be, as it long continued, the specific designation of 
the descendants of " Abram the Hebrew." It is to be 



48 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

noted that the Hebrews had in fact two names. It is 
evident from the Genesis and Exodus story that the 
Egyptians knew and referred to them as " Hebrews." 
Among themselves, however, this name, while never 
entirely disused, came to be used less and less, un- 
til that of " the children of Israel " came to be the 
almost constant designation. At the same time their 
descent from " the Hebrew " was never forgotten ; 
so that an apostolic letter even in New Testament 
times could be addressed " to the Hebrews." 

The sacred writer who was recording the exact 
fulfilment to a day of the prediction uttered by 
God to Abram evidently regarded " the children of 
Israel " and " the seed of Abraham " as convertible 
terms, and, however obscurely some may still think 
he expressed the thought, no doubt intended the 
430-year period to coincide with the 400 years of the 
prediction. The whole period was a period of so- 
journ and persecution. The Egyptian sojourn of 
the seed of Jacob was but the culmination of the so- 
journ of the Genesis passage, which contemplated the 
history of Abram and his seed as one. The two 
passages must be interpreted by the dominating 
thought of each. In the prediction the thought 
is of the history to come as the history of Abram's 
seed, or rather as the history of Abram still, culmi- 
nating in that of his seed. In the fulfilment em- 
phasis is put on the precise close which the day of 
the Exodus put on that history, which from begin- 



The Hebrew Chronology. 49 

ning to end had been a story of sojourn and persecu- 
tion. The one passage lays stress on the representative 
position of Mr am ; the other, on the exact fulfilment of 
the prediction made to him as the head of his people. 

At any rate, in some such way alone is it possible 
to bring the two Pentateuch passages into harmony 
with each other, into harmony with the time-indica- 
tions of the Levitical registers, and into harmony 
with Saint Paul's understanding of the era. And if 
for any reason the attempt be disallowed, then the 
true interpretation will remain an insoluble problem, 
and one must not reject the passages, but wait for 
further light. 

Eeasoning then in this way, one may conclude 
that the beginning of the time-period of 430 years 
is to be looked for in the era of Abraham ; and 
the only remaining question is as to its intended 
initial year. 

As to this point it might at first be naturally 
enough inferred that the initial year would be the 
date of the Genesis prediction, and particularly as 
Saint Paul seems to make this his point of departure. 
But while Saint Paul evidently believed that the 430- 
year period would carry one back to Abraham's day, 
he was not indulging in a formal historical review of 
the period. He used even the definite number in- 
definitely, — i. e., without regard to its exact begin- 
ning or end. His argument had to do with Abraham 
as the representative believer of all time ; and his 

4 



50 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

strong point was that the covenant God made with 
him as such — the covenant of promise — was made 
long before the time of the Lawgiver and his law. 
The two dates Saint Paul adopts, that of the covenant 
of promise and that of the giving of the law, were 
near enough to the real dates, and better suited the 
form of his argument. It was no part of Saint Paul's 
purpose to settle the precise initial year of the pe- 
riod, any more than its precise date of ending. 

But there is one insuperable difficulty that would 
prevent our adopting the date of " the covenant 
of promise " as the initial year of the time-period, 
— viz., that it is impossible to fix that date with 
precision. It is only known that the prediction was 
uttered some time during Abram's first ten years' 
sojourn in the land of Canaan, and that it was after 
he had been to Egypt and before he took Hagar to 
wife. 1 Now, considering the emphatic way in which 
the close of the time-period is mentioned as known 
to a da?/, it would scarcely be allowable to accept an 
approximate date for its beginning. Moreover, if 
the view insisted upon of the representative character 
of Abraham and his history of sojourn be the true 
one, one could scarcely err in accepting as the initial 
year of the period that date which the sacred writer 
himself gives with precision, — the age of Abram 
when he crossed " the River," and so inaugurated 
that history of sojourn in a strange land, and of 

1 Compare Gen. xv. 1 and xvi. 3. 



The Hebrew Chronology. 51 

persecution withal, which was to culminate in the 
strangely similar experiences of his seed in the land 
of Egj^pt. That was an era of promise also, and an 
era of faith. 1 In truth, several times during those 
early years of sojourn did God appear to Abram 
for his encouragement, though not in so intensely 
solemn and formal a way as at the time of the Gen- 
esis prediction, when God entered into so fast a 
compact with him that the historian could call it a 
" covenant." 2 

At any rate, Ab ram's crossing " the River " seems 
to have not only given him a name that still sur- 
vives, but to have furnished a date which the sacred 
writer deemed most worthy of definite commemora- 
tion. It would, therefore, also seem to be the date 
intended to be the initial year of the period that so 
intimately concerned Abram and his seed. 

We may say, therefore, in concluding this review 
of the Hebrew chronology of our period, that one 
may accept from the Pentateuch story with but little 
hesitation the time-period of 430 years as a definite 
period, — a period exact to a day as it came to a 
close, and to be dated from the day which should be 
the day of days in the calendar of a Jew, — the 
day when " the Hebrew " crossed " the River," thus 
separating himself from the past and beginning a 
history without an ending. 

1 Heb. xi. 9. 2 Gen. xv. 18. 



52 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 



LECTURE III. 

JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

IN the chart which has been prepared to facilitate 
the work of comparison that is to occupy us in the 
remaining lectures, the attempt has been made to 
indicate what is certain and what remains uncertain, 

— these latter time-factors being represented by the 
dotted portions of the lines. 

Scanning first the Hebrew part of the chart, it will 
at once be observed to what strict limits the Levitical 
Registers confine us. At one end of the line it is 
but a sum in addition, that, starting wdth Abram's 
seventy-fifth year as the initial year of the Hebrew 
time-period, would oblige us to fix the date of Joseph's 
death as the year 286 of that period ; and it is a yet 
simpler calculation, at the other end of the line, that 
fixes the birth of Moses as the year 350 of the period, 

— thus leaving a possible interval between the two 
events of but sixty-four years. It must further be 
observed with what precision the Registers fix the 
place, in the Hebrew time-period, of Joseph's fourteen 
years of plenty and of famine. It should be empha- 
sized therefore, at the very start, that the dates thus 



Joseph in Egypt. 53 



fixed cannot be debated. If we are justified in adopt- 
ing from the Pentateuch its 430-year period and in 
dating it from Abram's seventy-fifth year, then the 
dates referred to are stubborn factors, that remain 
fixed points of departure for any possible comparison 
with the Egyptian chronology. 

Scanning next the Egyptian part of the chart, it 
will be observed that there are, similarly, fixed as 
well as uncertain time-factors. We refer now not 
only to the regnal periods that are certain, but to 
the " Set Era " of the Tanis tablet, which in so curi- 
ous a way forms an almost exact parallel with the 
Hebrew time-period itself. For if we are justified 
in adopting it at all, it certainly carries us back 400 
years, from some year of Rameses II. to the begin- 
ning of the Shepherd dominion. And it cannot but 
be observed how, within specific limits, this era re- 
mains a fixed element, whichever Egyptian chronol- 
ogy we adopt, furnishing an important corroborative 
standard with which to compare parts of the period 
that are uncertain, and forbidding undue estimates 
of intervals. 

The chart presents five possible Egyptian Registers 
for comparison with the Hebrew time-period, repre- 
senting the differing opinions of Egyptologists on the 
chronology of our period. A comparison of these 
iive Registers will reveal a much less degree of di- 
vergence of opinion among Egyptologists respecting 
this period than may have been imagined. 



54 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

All the Registers, for example, present the same 
chronology for the period between the accession of 
Aahmes and the death of Amenophis IV., — a period 
of about 198 years. And they further agree as to 
the regnal periods of Seti I. and Eameses II., assign- 
ing to the latter Pharaoh his monumental sixty- 
seven years 1 and to Seti I. the thirty years, for 
which there seems good reason. 2 

1 In the "Academy" of July 3, 1886, may be found the "Proces verbal," 
by M. Maspero, of the unwrapping of the mummy of Eameses II., which, with 
many other royal mummies, came from the Deir-el-Bahari " find." According 
to Maspero, the Eameses face bears rather an animal expression than of high 
intelligence, coupled, however, with a certain decision of character and an 
air of kingly majesty. The body is that of " an old man, but vigorous and 
robust." He adds : " It is known that the sole reign of Eameses II. was sixty- 
seven years, and that he must have died almost a centenarian." 

2 In the "Academy" of July 31, 1886, may be found a similarly precise 
account, by Maspero, of the unwrapping of the mummy of Seti I., found also 
at Deir-el-Bahari. We are told that " the condition of the body would suggest 
that the sixtieth year had been long passed, confirming the opinion of savants 
that attributes to him a very long reign." But though old, it is not necessary 
to infer thence that he began to reign very early. There are indications that 
look the other way. It has been suggested as very probable, that his father and 
Horus (of Dynasty XVII.) were brothers, and both therefore contemporaries 
of Amenophis IV. ; for Horus was his general. If this be so, it is then likely 
that Seti was no longer young when his father died. That he should associate 
his son with him on the throne at so early an age would certainly suggest 
some reason for such haste, — a reason that might well enough have been his 
own advancing years. The monuments yield only his twenty -fifth year ; and 
it is certainly sufficient, therefore, to put his regnal period at thirty years. 
This would allow some eighteen years of an associated reign with his son, and 
that much of an associated reign for Eameses II. would seem to be required 
by the story of Eameses' wars. As an instance of the mistakes sometimes 
made by the most exact of men, allusion may be made to the fact that Maspero 
(" History," p. 218) should say that Eameses II. " made war in Syria from the 
time he was ten years old ; " whereas, putting together all the data, he could 
not well have been less than thirty (he was probably at least thirty -three) at 
the time of his Syrian war; for as the story of that war of his fifth year 
shows, he was old enough to have sons in command of army corps. No won- 
der that Brugsch ("History," vol. ii. p. 67) found it difficult to refrain from 




FROM BRITISH MUSEUM. 



THOTHMES III. 



Joseph in Egypt. 55 



The five Eegisters differ indeed as to three points 
only: (1) As to the interval between the death of 
Amenophis IV. and the accession of Seti I. This 
interval is differently treated by different writers ; 
the divergence in this case, however, amounting to 
but twenty years. (2) As to the length of Minep- 
tah's sole reign ; some making this eight, and others 
twenty years. 1 (3) As to the Exodus era ; three 
of the Eegisters synchronizing this with the close of 
Mineptah's reign, and the other two synchronizing it 
with the close of Dynasty XIX. But the total di- 
vergence of the five Registers amounts to less than 
fifty years. 

Advancing now to a comparison of the five possible 
Egyptian chronologies with the Hebrew time-period, 
some interesting conclusions will be reached at once. 

It will be observed, e. g., that the chronology of 
three of the Registers (I., III., and IY.) would oblige 
us to place Joseph's fourteen-year period in the reign 
of Thothmes III., while that of Register II. would 
synchronize it with the reign of Amenophis III. On 
the other hand, the chronology of Register V. would 

chaffing the savant, saving : " The presence of these grown np sons will prove 
to a French scholar that Eameses II. could not have fought at Kadesh as a 
boy of ten years." Xo doubt Brugsch makes the sons too well-grown ; but the 
fact is certified to by the inscriptions, that he had sons with him who were at 
least in formal command of named divisions. 

1 The monuments yield but his eighth year, which was probably its limit. 
The twenty years assigned by some is based on the Manetho numbers, which, 
as usual, vary in the lists; some making the regnal period eight, others twenty. 
It must be evident that the latter number is simply the addition of the twelve 
associated years and his eight sole years. 



56 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

oblige us to divide the period among three different 
Pharaohs. 

We may therefore at once reject Register V.; for 
the Scripture story undeniably leaves the impression 
that the period in question belonged to a single reign. 

Examining next the three Thothmes' Registers 
(I., III., IV.), it will be observed that they would 
oblige us to date Joseph's elevation, respectively, in 
the fortieth, thirty-eighth, and twenty-sixth years of 
that Pharaoh. 

Now, we may at once dismiss Register IV., because 
it is a monumental fact that the whole reign of 
Thothmes III. up to his fortieth year was a constant 
succession of foreign wars, and the chronology of 
Register IV. would oblige us to synchronize some of 
his most brilliant foreign campaigns with the seven 
years of famine, — a conclusion that one could hardly 
accept. 

We may also dismiss Register III., that puts the 
elevation of Joseph in the thirty-eighth year of 
Thothmes ; for while, did necessity compel, it might 
be accepted, inasmuch as it would merely oblige us 
to consider that Thothmes continued his campaigns 
during the first two of the plenteous years, Register 
I. is to be preferred, — for not only does it perfectly 
adapt itself to the two stories of Joseph and Thoth- 
mes, but, what is of more importance, the chronology 
of the Register as a whole is more trustworthy than 
that of Register III. 



Joseph in Egypt 57 

Consequently, only the two Kegisters (I. and II.) 
will remain for the work of comparison. 

Scanning these two Kegisters, then, it will be ob- 
served that while they both include in their reckon- 
ing the three brief reigns with which Dynasty XIX. 
closed, Eegister L, throughout the debatable por- 
tions of the era, adopts the shorter, while Register II. 
adopts the longer chronology, — the difference in time 
between the two, however, amounting to but thirty 
years in all. 

Accordingly, if we adopt the longer chronology, 
Joseph's fourteen-year period must be assigned to 
the reign of Amenophis III. ; whereas, if we adopt 
the shorter chronology, Joseph's period must be 
carried back to the reign of Thothmes III. 

The question may be asked, Which one of these 
two Pharaohs is the more likely to have been the 
Pharaoh of Joseph's elevation ? 

In reply, it may be said at once, that were we at 
liberty to accept at will either of the two chronolo- 
gies as equally trustworthy, it would be difficult to 
decide which of the two Pharaohs would better an- 
swer to the requirements of the Hebrew story The 
monuments show that the wars of Thothmes III. 
were virtually over after his fortieth year, and that 
he had the fourteen additional years needed yet to 
live ; and the wars of Amenophis III. were all over 
before at least the plenteous years had passed by, if 
we adopt that chronology, with abundance of regnal 



58 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

years yet remaining to more than cover the fourteen- 
year period. 

Both of them, moreover, were great Pharaohs; 
for if Thothmes III. was, as some think, the great- 
est of Egyptian kings, Amenophis III. was not far 
behind him. As a builder, indeed, he was quite as 
famous as his prototype. It would therefore be 
really difficult to decide between them, whether as 
respects the events of their reigns or their place in 
Egypt's history. 

Some may, however, imagine that the era of 
Amenophis is to be preferred, because, if the chro- 
nology of that Register is adopted, it would allow 
the death of Jacob to fall in the same reign as the 
fourteen-year period ; whereas that of Register I. 
would assign the event to a date some twelve years 
after the death of Thothmes III. But there is some- 
thing to be said in favor of the chronology of Regis- 
ter I. on this very ground ; for the Genesis story of 
Jacob's death and burial seems to imply that by that 
time some change had occurred, affecting Joseph's 
position in Egypt. The Genesis passage (Gen. 1. 
4, 5), tells how, after the days of mourning had 
ended, Joseph did not himself ask Pharaoh's per- 
mission to bury his father in the land of Canaan, but 
" spake unto the house of Pharaoh? and sought their 
intercession with Pharaoh on his behalf, saying, " If 
now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray 
you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying," etc. To be sure, 



Joseph in Egypt 59 



this may be otherwise explained. Still, the state of 
things naturally suggested by the words would be 
in complete harmony w 7 ith the chronology of Regis- 
ter I. We are not at liberty to suppose that Joseph 
maintained the position to which his Pharaoh exalted 
him throughout his remaining career, for he lived 
eighty years after his elevation. A change came, it 
is likely, with the first new reign ; though Joseph 
was doubtless respected, and continued to be almost 
as influential with succeeding kings as long as he 
lived. 1 It may be, therefore, that the passage in 
Genesis is really to be explained as a hint of a new 
reign intervening. At any rate, the fact of Jacob's 
death occurring in a subsequent reign, as Register I. 
would indicate, is rather an argument in favor of, 
than against, its chronology. 

But there is a further consideration, apart from 
the conviction that the chronology of Register I. is 
the more trustworthy, that leads us to make the 
choice between the two Pharaohs in favor of Thoth- 
mes III. as the more probable Pharaoh of Joseph's 
elevation. We refer to the probable influence of 
Joseph on the curious history of the reigns succeed- 
ing that of Thothmes III. 



1 The Talmud mentions a tradition that Pharaoh, Joseph's friend, died 
long before Joseph died, and that he commanded the son who succeeded him 
to obey Joseph in all things, and left the same instructions in writing. It also 
states : " This pleased the people of Egypt ; for they loved Joseph and trusted 
implicitly in him." See Polano's translation of " The Talmud," one of the 
"Chandos Classics," p. 118. 



60 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

If we may trust the chronology of Eegister I., 
Joseph survived Thothmes III. some sixty-six years, 
— a period that entirely covered four of the succeed- 
ing reigns; viz., those of Amenophis II., Thothmes IV., 
Amenophis III., and Amenophis IV. Moreover, the 
Scripture story would certainly suggest that Joseph 
was not only not neglected as long as he lived, but 
was influential enough to protect the rights of his 
people. The question may therefore be fairly enough 
put, Is there anything in the further monumental 
history of the Dynasty that may be explained on 
the hypothesis of Joseph's presence and influence ? 
"We think there is. We refer to the rise and pro- 
gress of that remarkable religious revolution that 
culminated, in the reign of Amenophis IV., in the 
establishment of a quasi-monotheism as the religion 
of the State. 

It was Lenormant who suggested that " the form 
of religion established by Amenophis IV. stood in a 
close relation to that professed at the time by the 
Israelite portion of his subjects." 1 Lenormant saw 
in the very name of the god so exclusively honored 
by Amenophis IV., u Aten," a reference to the Se- 
mitic " Adonai," and asked the question and answered 
it : " Had the Hebrews part in this foreign and very 
imperfect attempt at monotheism ? I believe one 
right in supposing this." He even finds some anal- 

1 Manuel d'histoire (Paris, 1868), vol. i. p. 252. Kawlinson's History 
of Egypt, vol. ii. p. 273. 



Joseph in Egypt. 61 



ogies between the cult of the Hebrews, as finally 
established by Moses, and that shown on the monu- 
ments of Amenophis IV.. — e. g., the table of shew- 
bread and, we may add, the burning of incense. 1 

Diimichen also has pointed out the resemblance 
between the god " Aten " and the Semitic " Adon " 
(Lord), observing that " the hieroglyphic group was 
certainly used with reference to this Semitic name 
of God." 2 

But whether these things be accepted or not, the 
fact remains that scions of this Dynasty were more 
or less alienated from the prevailing creed of the 
nation, and in one instance completely broke faith 
with the past, and went so far as not only to dis- 
card the Theban god and his worship, but to erect 
a new capital, with its temple restricted to a single 
cult, the worship of " Aten." 

The revolution did not originate with Amenophis 
IV. It had been long brewing. It is known that 
his father, Amenophis III., sympathized with the 
" Aten " worship, though he did not go to such a 
length as his son, and completely break with the 
Theban priests. The revolution can be traced back 
farther still, — at least to the preceding reign, that of 
Thothmes IV. In that reign, however, it was scarcely 
more than a revival of interest in the most ancient 

1 See Prisse d'Avenne's " Monuments Egyptiens " PI. XII., where Ame- 
nophis IV. is represented as burning incense to "Aten." 

2 Die Flotte einer Aegyptischen Koenigin (Leipzig, 1868). See particu- 
larly his explanation of Tab. III., p. 18. 



62 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

and purest worship of Egypt, that of the sun. But 
if it is true that the new school of thought took its 
rise before the reign of Amenophis III., and we are 
right in supposing that the religious revival was due 
in any degree to Joseph's inspiration, then we must 
of course look for Joseph's Pharaoh before Ameno- 
phis III. It is on this account, therefore, that Thoth- 
mes III., the Pharaoh indicated by Register I., is to 
be preferred as the Pharaoh of Joseph's elevation. 

But let us look a little more closely at this religious 
movement, and at Joseph's connection therewith. 

What the very earliest worship of Egypt was, it 
is perhaps impossible to say. But those who have 
studied the subject most carefully, have noticed that 
the nearer we get to the beginning of things the 
simpler and purer dogma becomes. And there are 
those who affirm that the earliest theology of the 
Egyptians was monotheistic. 1 The polytheism of 
which the sacred books became so full can be best ex- 
plained as the result of an attempt very early made to 
describe the One God, who, according to an expression 
that often occurs, " manifests himself in millions of 
forms." If there was any universal worship in Egypt, 

1 Brugsch's "Religion und Mythologie" (Leipzig, 1884; only the first half 
is as yet published). Eenouf's "Hibbert Lectures" for 1879. "Rev. Arch.," 
vol. for 1860, Part I., containing articles by De Rouge on the "Funeral 
Ritual of the Ancient Egyptians." Pierret's " Essai sur la Mythologie 
Egyptienne" (Paris, 1879). Lepsius' " Aelteste Texte des Todtenbuchs " ; 
Max Miiller on "Solar Myths," in the "Nineteenth Century" (Dec, 1885). 
Maspero's "Histoire Ancienne" (1886), p. 25 et seq.; also, his " Guide au Musee 
de Boulaq" (1884), p. 147, on the "Pantheon Egyptien," etc. 



Joseph in JEgijpt 63 



it was the sun-worship, founded on the sun-myth. 1 
That myth in its origin was intended to be a simple 
description of phenomena. It took account of the 
sun in its various positions above and below the ho- 
rizon, and noted its influence on matter and on life. 
Afterwards, perceiving the analogies that are so 
evident between the sun's history and that of a hu- 
man life, it became philosophical, and sought thereby 
to explain the origin and history and destiny of all 
things. 

No one would be so bold as to affirm that any 
Egyptian, at least in the ancient days, accepted the 
story of Osiris and Isis as veritable history. It was, 
in the first instance, symbolism, pure and simple. 
And possibly no more appropriate and adequate a 
symbol of the Divine Being can be found in Nature, 
than the sun. No wonder the sun-myth originated 
so early, and no wonder it stayed so long. At any 
rate, the sun-worship is the only universal worship 
met in the most ancient Egypt ; and though one or 
another of the separate sun-gods of the myth came 
to be prominently emphasized in certain centres, — 
as Ea at Heliopolis, Osiris at Abydos, and Turn at 
Memphis, — yet the unity of the myth was never lost 
sight of. 

But the Egyptians did not stop in their philoso- 
phizing with the sun-myth. Solar myths form but a 
part of mythology. All phenomena in the realm of 

1 Maspero's Histoire, p. 211. 



64 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

Nature and life were thus described and similarly 
traced to their causes. And how natural it was for 
them, while dealing with the causes of the phenom- 
ena met with in Nature, to find themselves wrestlino- 
with the problem of the One Great Cause of all 
things ! It is easy enough to see that the other so- 
called deities of Egypt — i. e., those not distinctively 
sun-gods — were originally but expressions for con- 
ceptions, more or less philosophical, of the origin of 
things. The view serves to explain the multitude 
of local deities, all expressing the same conception. 
For it is certainly true that in the earliest Egypt 
no one of these had the pre-eminence. These local 
deities simply show what philosophical conceptions 
of the Supreme Being and his attributes were most 
potent in their localities. Thus, e. g., the Memphis 
priests, explaining the origin of things, believed that 
they were made by some Creator; and they called him 
"Ptah," "the maker or shaper," looking on him as 
the Demiurge of the universe. The Theban priests 
put more emphasis on the inscrutable and mysterious 
character of the Being who was the author of all 
being, and so called him "Amen," — "the concealed. " 
But in the beginning these were perfectly co-ordi- 
nate conceptions and co-ordinate deities ; recognized 
as such, wherever known. And yet, underlying 
them all was the idea, that never entirely lost its 
power, of the One God, who simply " manifests " 
himself in these almost numberless forms ; meaning 



Joseph in Egypt. 65 



thereby to express the variety of his attributes. 1 
While, however, these local conceptions gave rise in 
this way to many local polytheisms, the sun-myth 
never lost its influence. The Heliopolite priests, 
through all changes of Dynasties and of dogmas, 
persisted in emphasizing the story of Osiris or Ra, 
who was really Egypt's one God. The pious Egyp- 
tian, no matter where he lived, was most anxious 
at death to be identified with Osiris, and to enjoy 
that eternal life which could alone be possessed by 
becoming one with him. 2 

Now, while all this was true, circumstances were 
ever bringing some one of the local cults into promi- 
nence. The establishment of the capital at Mem- 
phis, e. g., would be sure to make its god " Ptah " 
more important throughout the realm. So, when 
Thebes was elevated from the rank of a mere provin- 
cial town 3 to become the capital, it was natural that 
its local god, " Amen," should then come to the fore. 
Moreover, when we remember the place Thebes 
occupied in Egypt's history, it is not to be won- 
dered at that its priests, who were so devoted 
to Amen, should assert and maintain his pre-emi- 
nence. At first, to be sure, these claims were not 
put forth to the exclusion of Ptah or of the solar 
gods ; but in time Amen was so far pushed to the 

1 Hibbert Lectures (1879), pp. 89, 215; also, De Kouge, in "Kev. Arch./' 
I860, p. 230, on " The Seventeenth Chapter of the Kitual." 

2 Hibbert Lectures, p. 184. 

3 Maspero's Histoire, p. 206. 

5 



66 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

front as to dim the lustre of the other deities, and 
at length to claim the place of Ra and to be called 
" Amen-Ra." 

It is not difficult, also, to understand what jealous- 
ies such pretensions would excite among the parti- 
sans of the other cults, nor to understand how the 
Pharaohs, aware of what could happen should the 
Theban priests grow too strong, 1 would do all in their 
power to curb the development of the Amen-cult; 
only, however, to discover that it was a power be- 
hind the throne that they must recognize and even 
favor. 

Whether Amenophis II. did aught to resist the 
growing tyranny, is not known. His reign was short, 
and not much is known of him. But his successor, 
Thothmes IV., whose reign was also brief, seems to 
have tried at least to resist the encroachments of 
the Amen priests ; for under the pretext of a dream 
and of a special Divine command, he cleared away 
the sand that was fast burying the old Sphinx, and, 
connecting it once more with the ancient worship of 
which it w T as a relic, emphasized the worship of the 
sun-god " Hormakhis," — i.e., Horus, or the sun, of the 
two horizons. But for some reason he did not long 
survive, and his end is obscure. But it is evident, not- 
withstanding the meagre account we have of the de- 
tails of the movement, that there was in that reign a 
marked revival of interest in the purer worship of 

1 It did happen at the close of Dynasty XX. 



Joseph in Egypt 67 



the sun, — a revival that may not altogether be ex- 
plained from its political side, but could be adequately 
explained on the supposition of the presence and 
influence of Joseph. The monuments yield much 
information respecting the subsequent reign, — that 
of Amenophis III., who, next to Thothmes III., 
probably made the profoundest impression on Egyp- 
tian history. He was a remarkable Pharaoh, as 
respects both his public and private history. The 
one fact of his life, however, that most stirred the 
Egyptians was that this great Pharaoh should take 
to wife, not a scion of the royal house, nor even an 
Egyptian, but a foreigner, — a foreigner, as is now 
agreed to by Egyptologists, of Semitic blood. Canon 
Cook emphasizes, as he expresses it, "the strongly 
marked Semitic features, not to say Jewish, of the 
mother of Amenophis IV., as gathered from the por- 
traits found on the monuments." 1 Why the great 
Amenophis thus departed from the traditions of 
Egypt, no one can affirm ; but the sequel, that tells 
of her influence on him and on her son, shows what 
an epoch it created in Egypt's history. 

Doubtless Amenophis was influenced in what he 
did, partly at least, by the politico-religious consider- 
ations already mentioned ; but his marriage undoubt- 
edly strengthened whatever purpose he had formed 



1 Speaker's Commentary, vol. i. p. 460. For her portrait see Lepsius' 
" Denkmaeler," vol. vii. abt. iii. ; also, Prjsse d'Avenne's " Monuments/* 
PI. XII. 



68 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

of resistance to the Amen-encroachments. State- 
craft led him still to maintain relations with the 
Theban priests, and outwardly he showed them favor ; 
but he also showed marked favor to the ancient sun- 
worship of Heliopolis, and at length, according to 
some, established, though not to the exclusion of the 
Amen-worship, the special sun-cult, which received its 
fullest development under his son's reign. Even those 
twin colossi, erected in his reign, that are so conspic- 
uous a feature of the Theban plain, completely domi- 
nating the horizon in the South as the Sphinx does 
in the North, can only be explained as identifying 
the king with the sun-god Horus, of the two hori- 
zons. At any rate, Amenophis III. celebrated a 
festival, which a scarabaeus connects with his eleventh 
year, of a boat of the solar disc, called " Aten-nefru, " 
— i. e., " the most lovely Aten." He was doubtless, 
therefore, inclined to the new dogma, but, as Dr. 
Birch says, deemed it needful u to introduce it by 
degrees." 1 

The son, Amenophis IV., on reaching the throne, 
at once openly revolted against the Amen-ascend- 
ency ; and that no one might misunderstand his 
purpose, worshipped the sun exclusively, regarding 
the visible sun, that is so important to the life of the 
earth, as symbolical of the invisible God who is the 
source of all blessing. He even founded a new capi- 
tal, and made it the centre of his new cult ; and was 

1 Birch's History of Egypt, p. 108. 



Joseph in Egypt 69 



so much in earnest that he changed his name from 
Amenophis to " Khuenaten," as though he would not 
even be called by Amen's name. He had also the 
courage of his convictions, and felt strong enough to 
build an "Aten" sanctuary in Thebes itself, over 
against the Karnak temple ; though it was after- 
wards destroyed, and its materials appropriated. 

Now if, as the chronology of Register I. would in- 
dicate, Joseph was exalted in the last quarter of the 
reign of Thothmes III. and continued to live through 
all these succeeding reigns, may we not find the key 
to the evidently increasing influence of the creed and 
ritual of Heliopolis in his connection therewith ? 

It is at any rate true, according to the Scripture 
story, that Joseph became connected with Heliopolis, 
the old-time home of sun-worship, and even married 
into its priestly house, — a fact as startling from the 
Egyptian as from the Hebrew point of view. More- 
over, the Hebrews, his kindred, seem to have re- 
tained a recollection of the Heliopolite ritual, and 
of that alone, amid the Divine discipline that en- 
deavored to instil into their hearts, as into their creed, 
the faith of Jehovah and his spiritual worship. 

In the sun-god ritual at Heliopolis the sun-bull of 
Osiris (the white bull Mnevis 1 ^J ) played an im- 
portant part. It was the bull which was colored in 
gold when painted on inscriptions ; and when cast; 
was made in gold or brass. 

1 Lepsius' Egypt, Ethiopia, etc., p. 413. 



70 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

In Egyptian symbolism, while the gods were some- 
times represented as men with characteristic emblems, 
they were also represented by animals. 1 Amen, e. g., 
was symbolized by a well-grown goose, Ptah by a 
beetle, Thoth sometimes by an ibis and sometimes by 
a dog-headed ape, Annbis by a jackal. So it was 
with the sun-gods. Horus' symbol was the hawk. 
A bird (the "Phoenix") represented Osiris. Ka was 
symbolized by a bull. Both the Osiris-Phoenix and 
the Ra-bull, " Mnevis," had a home at Heliopolis. 
Now, all this was doubtless in the first instance the 
purest symbolism, though it degenerated, as it was 
sure to do, into a disgusting animal-worship. 

The most celebrated of the sacred animals were 
the bulls, called by different names at various local 
centres, but all pointing to the same god. The 
" Mnevis-bull " at Heliopolis was called " the soul of 
Ra." The "Apis " bull at Memphis was called "the 
incarnation of Osiris." At first this latter was a 
pure sun-god ; but at length it was developed into a 
complex deity, and was said to have proceeded from 
both Ptah and Osiris, and was called "The second 
life of Ptah and soul of Osiris." It was "without 
father," — its generation was of heavenly origin, " a 
ray of light from the sky fertilizing its mother." 
The deceased Apis bull became an Osiris, and took 
the name of " Osiris- Apis," of which the Greeks 
made " Serapis." The bull-worship at Memphis, 

1 Maspero's Histoire, p. 28. 



Joseph in Egypt. 71 

therefore, was not strictly the pure sun-worship. It 
came to be mixed up with the Ptah worship, just as 
at Thebes the later worship of "Amen" was devel- 
oped, as stated already, into the mongrel conception 
of " Amen-Ra." 

The sun-worship was best maintained in its purity 
at Heliopolis, where all the sun-gods comprised in the 
sun-myth had their recognition, and the doctrine of 
the Divine Unity was clearly enough taught in its 
theological school. This idea was represented by the 
white bull Mnevis, whose worship, symbolizing as it 
did " the soul of Ra," kept before the mind of the 
worshipper the thought that there was after all but 
one God. 

Is it a mere coincidence, then, when the Hebrews 
lost heart amid the perplexities of the wilderness, 
that they should have returned, as by an instinct, to 
a worship with which they had probably been only 
too familiar ? 

We all know how, amid the uncertainties of their 
new life that led them to think themselves deserted 
of Moses and Moses' God, they set up the golden 
bull and worshipped it, doubtless as they had done 
many a time before in Egypt. For, as Lenormant 
says, there is no doubt but that " during their 
sojourn in Egypt the monotheism of the Hebrews 
had become somewhat materialized." 1 Such facts 
serve to give a greater point to the command writ- 

1 Manuel, vol. i. p. 254. 



72 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

ten by God's own finger, that, while enumerating 
the very forms of worship with which they were fa- 
miliar, forbade symbolic worship of any description, 
and put the command in the Decalogue, as a moral 
prohibition of universal obligation. A purely spirit- 
ual worship is the most difficult of all achievements, 
and apostasy therefrom natural and easy. The ten- 
dency is operative still in the symbolism of our own 
day, which, innocent as it is claimed to be in itself 
and as an aid to devotion, is as important a step 
toward idolatry to-day as ever. Nevertheless, it can- 
not be doubted that Joseph to a certain extent con- 
formed in Heliopolis to its sun-worship. He could 
not have married into its priestly house without be- 
coming at least formally associated with its school 
and without showing some sympathy with its teach- 
ing. To be sure, some may think it a reflection on 
Joseph that he should, if he did, even appear to abet 
for so many years a style of worship that from the 
Scripture's standpoint seems indefensible. But we 
are to remember that the Second Commandment 
had not yet been given. Besides, Joseph probably 
regarded it as simply symbolism. One can under- 
stand how Joseph, though retaining to the full his 
Hebrew faith, might have seen in the sun-worship 
of Heliopolis not only the purest of Egypt's creeds, 
but a symbolic way of expressing his own belief that 
there is but One God, the source of all life and bless- 
ing. Moreover, he may have regarded it as a choice 



Joseph in Egypt. 73 



between evils. He may have reasoned that it was 
not only easier but wiser to supplant Egypt's poly- 
theism by emphasizing one of its purest dogmas, 
which could be easily explained as teaching mono- 
theism. If he could not at once overthrow the gods of 
Egypt, he could try to mitigate the horrors and inde- 
cencies of the idolatrous mysteries, by drawing atten- 
tion to a purer and more beneficent worship which 
their own priests could teach, and which had been 
sung from ancient times in many beautiful hymns. 
He doubtless found a possible ground for sympathy 
with the Heliopolite dogma, in the original symbol- 
ism of the sun-worship, that representing Ea, as it 
did, both as a man and a bull, did so simply to sym- 
bolize on the one hand the intelligence, and on the 
other hand the creative and upholding strength, of 
the one God, who is the Author and the Sustainer 
of the universe of matter and of mind. 

From such a point of view it is easy enough to 
explain the rise and progress of the religious revolu- 
tion that characterized the middle history of Dynasty 
XVIII. It throws light on that curious marriage 
of the third Amenophis, that undoubtedly can be 
adequately explained by the presence of some of 
Joseph's kindred in the court circle. It certainly 
points to the inspiration of her conceded influence 
on the king respecting the new cult, that was yet so 
old. It would also point to Joseph's influence on the 
son, — an influence great enough by that time to 



74 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

lead Amenophis virtually to abandon Heliopolis itself 
as well as Thebes, and establish a new centre for 
a yet purer form of the sun-worship. Around the 
old centre had doubtless grown up corruptions and 
abuses, which Joseph found it impossible to reform 
or control. The only thing to be done was, if pos- 
sible, to induce the king to break with it altogether, 
and to establish a virtually exclusive creed and 
worship, — " Atenism," recognizing but one god 
" Aten," the very name suggesting the Semitic notion 
of " Lord " of all. The change of the king's own 
name to " Khuenaten " — i. e., " the glory of Aten," 
or " the glory of God " — would certainly show his 
own warm sympathy with the new theology. 

It is from considerations such as these, that we are 
led, therefore, to prefer the era of Thothmes III. for 
the date of Joseph's elevation ; inasmuch as the 
heresy (as some regarded it) certainly took its rise, 
though with feeble beginnings, before the time of 
Amenophis III., and the heresy itself can be best 
explained in connection with the presence and influ- 
ence of Joseph. Besides, as already seen, it is the con- 
clusion to which the chronology of Register I., that 
is more trustworthy than the other, would lead. 

But whether in the end it will appear that 
Thothmes III. or Amenophis III. was the Pharaoh 
of Joseph's elevation, it can be said, at present, that 
either of them would abundantly satisfy the condi- 
tions suggested by the Hebrew narrative. 








FROM BRITISH MUSEUM. 



AMENOPHIS III. 



Joseph in Egypt 75 



(1) Each of them had a reign long enough and 
of a character to answer the requirements of the 
story of Joseph. 

(2) Both were native sovereigns; and conse- 
quently all the arguments that point to a native 
rather than to a foreign prince, like one of the 
Shepherds, would equally well apply. 

No one with an unprejudiced mind, reading the 
Hebrew story, would for a moment think of Joseph's 
Pharaoh as a Shepherd king. There are a number 
of incidental hints, scattered throughout the narra- 
tive, which, brought together, find their most natural 
interpretation in an Egyptian Pharaoh. Take as 
an example that " aside," if we may so call it, in 
Gen. xlvi. 34, which Joseph knew so well how to 
turn to the advantage of his brethren, — " for every 
shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians." To 
be sure, there are those who, believing Joseph's 
Pharaoh to have been a Shepherd king, and per- 
ceiving the point of the " aside," have tried to 
explain it to suit their view ; but all must feel how 
forced are their explanations. A Shepherd king 
would surely not be suggested to the ordinary 
reader. All, however, is natural enough, if the 
Pharaoh were a native sovereign, and particularly if 
of a Dynasty whose founder had expelled the hated 
foreigners, and who continued to hold in abhorrence 
the very occupation that would call to mind the 
Shepherd kings. 



76 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

Mention may also be made of two important facts 
touched upon in the Hebrew story, — viz., Joseph's 
connection by marriage with the priestly house of 
Heliopolis at Pharaoh's instance, and the hints given 
in several connections * that Joseph's Pharaoh was 
king over all Egypt from one end of it to the other. 
As to the former point, is it more likely that such a 
connection would have been sought for Joseph, or if 
sought granted, under a native or a foreign rule ? 
As to the latter point, it is not certain that such 
a universal sway was true of any Shepherd king. 
The Delta was doubtless in the complete possession 
of some of them for a time, but it is not likely that 
their sway over Upper Egypt ever amounted to 
much more than a suzerainty. 2 Certainly none of 
the Shepherd kings ever so ruled the whole land 
as to be able to introduce such important and far- 
reaching fiscal arrangements as is asserted in Scrip- 
ture of the Pharaoh of Joseph. 

It may be further stated, that even if a recon- 
structed chronology would allow the era of Joseph 
to be synchronized with the Shepherd Era, there 
would be an inexplicable difficulty to remove, occa- 
sioned by the continued presence of the Hebrews in 
Egypt subsequent to the Shepherds' expulsion. The 
question might in such a case fairly enough be 

1 Gen. xli. 45, 46 ; xlvii. 20, 21. 

2 Maspero, in his " Histoire," p. 167, says "their sway was scarcely beyond 
the Fayoum." 



Joseph in Egypt 77 

asked, Why were not the Hebrews also expelled 
from the Delta along with their Semitic neighbors ? 
Why, in view of the hatreds begotten by the very 
occupation of the Hyksos, — a hatred that only intensi- 
fied as time passed by, so that the very sight of one 
was enough to evoke it anew, — were the Hebrew 
shepherds allowed to stay ? 

On the hypothesis of Register I., which brings 
Joseph to Egypt long after the Shepherd expulsion, 
all is explicable. It can be readily understood how in 
the time of Thothmes III. a simple Hebrew should, 
for distinguished services to the State, be raised to 
honor, just as Daniel and Mordecai were rewarded 
long after in the farther East. It is clear, too, how 
his evident spirit of loyalty to Pharaoh's interests, 
coupled with his unfeigned piety, would check any 
undue jealousy or suspicion of the foreigner. The 
hypothesis best explains, also, the spirit of those 
precautions which Joseph felt it prudent to take 
when it became needful to provide for the settle- 
ment of his brethren in Egypt. We refer particu- 
larly to his successful effort to get them assigned to 
a part of the country not only suited to their occu- 
pation, but where they could dwell apart from the 
Egyptians, and so, at least for a while, not arouse 
prejudice against themselves, either as foreigners or 
shepherds. It is easy enough to see, in view of all 
these circumstances, how neither Pharaoh nor his 
house nor the Egyptians would be apt to think of 



78 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

danger in connection with the single family thus 
allowed to live and thrive on Egyptian soil. And it 
is but needful to suppose that during the remainder 
of his life Joseph acted with the prudence of the 
earlier years, to understand how his character would 
continue to be respected, and his influence on be- 
half of his people's interests would be maintained 
through every change of government he survived, 
and as long as he lived ; and that only thereafter 
could any suspicion and persecution of the Hebrews 
begin. 

The narrative of Joseph is indeed intensely Egyp- 
tian 1 in its whole spirit and in every detail, even to 
names and places. It is as much so as the story of 
Moses, whose Pharaoh is universally accepted as a 
native sovereign. At any rate, the chronology that 
obliges us to place Joseph's elevation in the reign 
either of Thothmes III. or of Amenophis III. finds 
this much confirmation in the fact that in either 
case he would be an Egyptian king. 

It may be added that either of them would be 
also a great Pharaoh ; for such is also the impression 
made by the Hebrew story. Joseph's Pharaoh was 
a sovereign whose word was law, who could change 
the very constitution of society in his realm, and 
become in one sense a despot, though in another 

1 Brugsch's History, vol. i. p. 265. Ebers has entered into this question in 
extenso in his books, and with his well-known insight and accuracy. Rev. 
H. G. Tomkins also, in his valuable works, originally contributed as papers 
to the " Victoria Institute." 



Joseph in Egypt. 79 



sense, under Joseph's tuition, a really beneficent 
ruler. And curiously enough, this too was equally 
true of both the great Thothmes and the great 
Amenophis. The history of the monuments would 
show that both of these sovereigns were at once 
the most powerful and the most beneficent of 
Egypt's Pharaohs. 

If the objection be urged to the identification of 
either of these Pharaohs as Joseph's Pharaoh, that 
there is no monumental indication 1 of Joseph's 

1 It would appear that there were two occasions, referred to on the monu- 
ments, when Egypt suffered from prolonged famines. Both, as was to he 
expected, have been claimed as the famine of Joseph's day. The first would 
carry us back, however, to the days of Usertesen I., the second king of Dy- 
nasty XII. (See Brugsch's " History," vol. i. p. 135; also "Kecordsof the 
Past," vol. xii. p. 63.) This era is one in which some have located Abraham, 
but to which no one would now assign Joseph. 

The other famine is mentioned by Brugsch (vol. i. p. 261). It is found 
in an inscription in the tomb of one Baba, whom Brugsch would synchronize 
with the period of the Rasekenens, one of whom, the first, was Apepi's con- 
temporary. Brugsch, who regards Apepi as Joseph's Pharaoh, believes that 
in this instance the famine alluded to is that of Joseph's day ; and he regards 
Baba as an officer of the native prince, who acted under the instructions of 
Apepi, his suzerain, or of Joseph, Apepi's chief. But according to the chro- 
nology of the era as determined by both the Hebrew and Egyptian registers, 
Apepi must be considered as an impossible Pharaoh of Joseph, but may 
have been Abraham's Pharaoh. So that if Brugsch is right in his sur- 
mise that Baba was Apepi's contemporary, there may, curiously enough, be 
in his tomb-inscription an allusion to the famine that brought Abram to 
Egypt. The monuments, therefore, thus far yield no allusions to Joseph's 
famine. 

There is, however, a monumental allusion to a granary officer in a subse- 
quent reign who occupies a position so like Joseph's that one is certainly 
tempted at first thought to identify the two, and particularly as his Pharaoh 
was Amenophis III. M. Naville first directed attention to him in a letter 
dated Jan. 23, 1880. It is to be found in " Trans. Vict. Instit.," vol. xiv., ap- 
pended to Kev. H. G. Tomkins' paper on " The Life of Joseph." M. Naville 
describes some pictures (see Prisse d'Avenne's " Monuments," PL XXXIX.- 
XLTL), which, as he says, reminded him strongly of Joseph and his employ- 



80 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt, 

presence in either reign, nor a hint even of any 
event of the fourteen-year period, it can only be 
replied, Not as yet. For the monumental history of 
the two reigns, while reasonably full, remains in- 
complete. But the objection would be of equal 
force with respect to the reign of any other 
supposed Pharaoh of Joseph. There were other 
famines in Egypt, — doubtless prolonged seasons of 
scarcity, — but there is monumental information of 
but two of them; and this has reached us, not on 



merit. A minister named "Khaemha" stands in the presence of Amenophis 
III., while .all others bow before him, showing that he is of exalted rank. 
He speaks to the king, and has under his command'all the tax-gatherers and 
all that concerned the granaries. He has the strange title, " The eyes of the 
king in the towns of the South and his ears in the provinces of the North," 
which, as M. Naville says, implies that he knew the land perfectly, and that, 
like Joseph, he had gone throughout all the land of Egypt (Gen. xli. 46). " His 
resemblance with Joseph I find particularly striking, considering that Joseph 
seems to have been a purely civil officer, and to have had nothing to do with 
the military class." Mr. Tomkins was impressed with a scene in one of the 
pictures where the great man is decorated with a royal collar of gold, the gift 
of the king, just as was the case with Joseph. 

It is to be remembered that both M. Naville and Mr. Tomkins make 
Apepi to be Joseph's Pharaoh, so that it was impossible for them to regard 
this " Khaemha " of Amenophis III. as Joseph. They were simply impressed 
with the resemblances between the two as illustrating the Scripture story. 
When, however, as seen already, we know that Amenophis III. could be the 
Pharaoh of Joseph's elevation, or at least that Joseph was his contemporary, 
it is certainly tempting to identify " Khaemha " as Joseph. But there is one 
reason that would utterly forbid the identification, — a fact not alluded to by 
either M. Naville or Mr. Tomkins, but which Plate XLII. makes clear, — that 
the great " Khaemha " is represented as offering first-fruits to the goddess 
Rannu, the patroness of the field and the garden. However one may believe 
that Joseph could have countenanced in any degree the purer sun-worship of 
the Heliopolite school, it could scarcely be credited that he conformed to 
the Egyptian usages as respects the other gods of the pantheon. So that it 
would seem to be necessary to disallow any identification of " Khaemha" as 
Joseph. 



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Joseph in Egypt 81 



any royal monument, but discovered by the merest 
accident in private tombs. Granting to the objec- 
tion, however, its utmost force, it does not militate 
against the fact that not only the era of Joseph, but 
of the Hebrews taken as a whole, does fit itself, at 
many points of contact, into the history of Egypt 
authenticated by the monuments, and in a very 
satisfactory way. We have been reviewing the 
history of Joseph. We are next to deal with the 
era of Abraham, and then of Moses. And we will 
reach, we trust, some important conclusions. Still, 
the work of comparison has not been ended. It is 
only begun ; but as far as the monuments at present 
allow us to go, the comparison in no particular 
reflects upon, but the rather supports, the Hebrew 
tradition. No one can say what more any day may 
bring to light. We must be grateful for the light 
we possess, and wait patiently for more. 



82 Abraham j Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 



LECTURE IV. 

ABRAHAM AND MOSES. 

THE Hebrew tradition * mentions a brief visit to 
Egypt made by Abraham ; and the question 
is therefore a natural one, whether its date can 
be fixed in the Egyptian chronology. Its precise 
date in the Hebrew time-period is not mentioned. 
It can only be approximately gathered, but near 
enough for our purpose. According to the Genesis 
story, the visit was made not very long after Abram 
had crossed " the River,' ' and certainly before he had 
been ten years in the land of Canaan. One cannot, 
indeed, be far out of the way in supposing that it 
was made somewhere between the second and the 
fifth year of the Canaanitish sojourn ; for that would 
allow sufficient time for Lot's subsequent settlement 
in the Jordan valley, and the battle of the kings, 
all of which happened, it is clear, before the specified 
tenth year, when Abram took Hagar to wife. 2 If 
the visit was made then, somewhere between the 
second and the fifth year of the Hebrew time- 

1 Gen. xii. 10 to end, and xiii. 1, 2. 

2 Gen. xvi. 3. Compare verse 16. 



Abraham and Moses. 83 

period, it requires but a glance at the comparative 
chart of the two chronologies to observe that the 
visit must have been made while the Shepherds 
ruled Egypt ; for the fifth year of the Hebrew time- 
period coincides, in the adopted Egyptian Eegister 
(Register L), with a year of the Shepherd Era which 
was. indeed, some eighty-five years previous to the 
Expulsion. 

The question may therefore be asked, whether 
such a conclusion would find any support in the 
Hebrew and Egyptian stories. To this question it 
may be replied at once, that as far as the Hebrew 
story is concerned, there is nothing that would 
militate against such a conclusion, but the rather 
everything to favor it. An unprejudiced reader of 
Genesis can hardly fail to observe the difference 
between the Egypt of Abraham and the Egypt of 
Joseph, — a difference that cannot adequately be ex- 
plained by the simple lapse of time. It is at once 
clear that the Pharaoh who received and so hospita- 
bly treated Abram, notwithstanding that he brought 
with him his flocks for keep, was an entirely differ- 
ent style of man from the king who shared with his 
people a hatred of foreigners, and particularly of the 
shepherd class. And while those who push back 
Abram into Dynasty XII., and so are obliged to 
reconcile the Hebrew story with a native reign, 
have found in the monumental history of native 
Pharaohs evidence to show that strangers were 



84 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

allowed to enter and to dwell in Egypt, all must 
admit that these are exceptions to the rule, and that 
the Egyptians had as much contempt for foreigners 
as the Chinese of our own day. Outside peoples 
were looked upon as barbarians, to be tolerated, 
if need be, within their borders, not hospitably en- 
tertained. What a contrast with this does the Gene- 
sis story present ! There is a cordiality that marks 
the reception of Abram with his herds, a simplicity 
that characterized the relations between him and 
Pharaoh and his princes, a tenderness of treatment 
even amid the plagues occasioned by Abram's 
prevarication, that one can hardly connect with a 
proud and arrogant Egyptian prince. All is easily 
enough explained if, as the comparison of the two 
chronologies would suggest, he were a Shepherd 
king, himself a Semitic or at least a foreigner. 

If it be asked who he was, one can of course only 
conjecture. And yet it would be a supposition in 
whose favor much can be said, scrutinizing the two 
chronologies, if we should suspect him to be the 
very Apepi (or Apophis) that a Manetho 'tradition 
made the Pharaoh of Joseph. 1 Considering the 
confusions and misplacements that afflict so many 
of the Manetho lists, it is perfectly possible that it 
was a simple inadvertence in quoting the tradition, 
that substituted Joseph's name for Abram's. For if 
the Hebrew time-period be correctly dated from the 

1 Lepsius' Konigsbuch, middle section, Dynasty XVII. (Eusebius' List). 



Abraham and Moses. 85 

calling of Abram, it is impossible that Joseph could 
have lived in Apepi's time, while it might be true 
of Abram. 

Moreover, as far as the Egyptian chronology is 
concerned, the eighty-fifth year previous to the 
Shepherd Expulsion could very readily fall in the 
reign of Apepi. It has been stated already that 
the monuments establish the fact, suggested also 
by the Manetho lists, that the Shepherd kings of 
Dynasty XVII. were really suzerains, and that they 
recognized a native line as vassal princes. We may 
now add that it is possible to gather from the time- 
indications, imperfect as they are, which are avail- 
able for the two lines, a quite satisfactory idea 
of the era of Apepi. With regard to the native 
line, e. g., the monuments prove that there were 
at least four princes in the native line previous 
to Aahmes, Egypt's liberator, — viz., three " Ta " 
princes, each also called " Sekenen Ra," and Karnes, 
father of Aahmes. Then, as to the contemporary 
Shepherd line, the Manetho lists indicate that there 
were two, if not three of them, that intervened 
between the King Apepi who was suzerain to the 
first Ta (or Sekenen Ra) and the Shepherd king who 
was contemporary with Aahmes ; for it is in this way 
only that Apepi's position in the Manetho lists can 
be explained. 

As to the time covered by these contemporary 
suzerains and vassals, it can be said that while it is 



86 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

impossible to be certain as to this, it can neverthe- 
less be approximately gathered. 

It is certain, e. g., as to the native line, that 
Karnes' reign was short, 1 but as to the three " Ta " 
princes one can only conjecture. It is unknown 
whether they were father, son, and grandson, or 
father and two sons. If Maspero's surmise is cor- 
rect, judging from the appearance of his mummy, 
the third Ta was about forty years old when struck 
down in battle. 2 

As to the regnal periods of the contemporary 
Shepherds, we are completely dependent on the Ma- 
netho lists ; and these, as is usual with the Manetho 
numbers, are in great confusion. Still, six out of 
the eight lists give Apepi sixty-one years ; and 
while the variations respecting the two or three 
which follow are considerable, it is at least clear that 
eighty-five years previous to the Expulsion would 
be sure to bring us into some year of Apepi's reign. 
Beyond any doubt, the same period would be ample 
to bridge the interval in the native line between 
Ta I. (Sekenen Ra), who was Apepi's contemporary, 
and Aahmes, who expelled the Shepherds. 

1 Brugsch's History, vol. i. p. 252. Chabas' Les Pasteurs, p. 41. 

2 In the " Academy" of July 31, 1886, may be found Maspero's detailed 
account of the unwrapping of the mummy. It was among the " find " at Deir- 
el-Bahari. The mummy is that of a man about forty and of a vigorous frame. 
Serious wounds, particularly one inflicted on his head with a mace, show that 
he was struck down in battle. There was also some delay in securing his 
body ; for the embalming was done only after decomposition had set in, and 
all was done in haste. 



Abraham and Moses. 87 

Calculating the probabilities in this way from the 
meagre data available, one would certainly be justi- 
fied in putting Abram's visit to Egypt in Apepi's 
time, and before the war of liberation had begun. 

There is, moreover, a Scripture fact that certainly 
serves to corroborate the view that Abram's Pha- 
raoh was at least a Shepherd king. We refer to 
the Divine prohibition that forbade Isaac to go to 
Egypt. 

We learn from Gen. xxvi. 1, 2, that there was a 
famine in Isaac's as well as in Abram's day, and that 
Isaac was minded at first to seek relief in Egypt, but 
that " the Lord appeared unto him and said, Go 
not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I 
shall tell thee of." 

Why, it may be asked, was it deemed inexpedient 
just then for Isaac to seek an asylum in Egypt ? 

The precise date of the prohibition can only be 
approximately gathered, but it would seem from its 
position in the narrative to have been not long be- 
fore Esau's marriage, which would make Isaac at 
the time about 100 years old. That date would 
be the one hundred and twenty-fifth year of the 
Hebrew time-period, which date in the Egyptian 
Register I. would coincide with the fortieth year 
after Aahmes' accession, or thirty-five years after 
the expulsion of the Shepherds. 

There is no need, however, of fixing with greater 
precision the date of the occurrence, in either the 



88 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

Hebrew or the Egyptian chronology. It is enough 
to perceive that at the date of the prohibition the 
Shepherds were no longer in the land, and to gather, 
as can be done from the Egyptian history of the 
years thereafter, that the spirit of enmity towards 
the hated foreigners and all that would remind one 
of them not only survived through all those years, 
but became intensified. It was simply awaiting its 
opportunity for revenge, — an opportunity that did 
not come until the time of Thothmes III., when the 
great " war of vengeance," as it was called, against 
the Asiatics broke out, and only came to an end in 
the complete subjugation of the peoples as far as the 
Euphrates. Long after Isaac's time Joseph discov- 
ered that the feeling against the Shepherds was still 
dominant among the Egyptians. 

Amid such hate and spite surely it was not safe at 
any time from the date of the Expulsion to Thoth- 
mes' own day for an Asiatic to be found in Egypt, 
much less for one such to repair thither with flocks 
and herds. 

So that in the Divine prohibition laid upon Isaac 
not to go thither, even under stress of famine, we 
may find confirmation, albeit incidental, of the gen- 
eral correctness of the adopted chronology, suggest- 
ing on the one hand that Joseph's era was certainly 
subsequent to the Shepherd Expulsion, and on the 
other hand that Abraham's Pharaoh must have been 
a Shepherd. 



Abraham and Moses. 89 

There is yet further corroboration of the surmise 
that Abram's Pharaoh was a Shepherd king in the 
fact mentioned by the sacred writer, that when Abram 
came into the land of Canaan he found not only "the 
Canaanite in the land," but, more specifically still, 
the Amorite and the Hittite, and, what is yet more 
noteworthy, a settlement of Hittites around Hebron. 1 

Modern research seems to have settled the point 2 
that the original home of the Hittites was in the 
Southern Caucasus and in Cappaclocia and some 
other parts of Asia Minor, and that they thence 
spread by way of Cilicia into Northern Syria, found- 
ing there an empire. Their principal capitals, as late 
as Dynasties XVIII. and XIX., were Carchemish on 
the Euphrates and Kadesh on the Orontes. 3 North- 
ern Syria seems to have continued to be the habitat 
of the " Khita " as late as the time of Rameses II. 
There is no monumental evidence that the Khita 
inhabited Palestine earlier than that date * It is on 
this ground, indeed, that some have disallowed the 
identification of the Hittites of Genesis with the 
monumental Khita, or regard them at least as Hit- 
tites of another stock. 



1 Gen. xii. 6 ; xiv. 13 ; xv. 16; xxiii. 10. 

2 Maspero's Histoire, p. 179. 

3 Wright's Empire of the Hittites (2d ed.). 

4 Brugsch's " History," vol. ii. p. 3 ; also Professor Sayce's " A New Hittite 
Inscription/' in the " Academy" of Oct. 23, 1886, and criticisms thereon in the 
" Academy " of Octoher 30, by Professor Cheyne and Dr. Neubaner ; also Pro- 
fessor Sayce's reply, November 6 ; also Rev. H. G. Tomkins in the " Academy," 
Nov. 13, 1886. 



90 Abraham 7 Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

But the presence of those Hittites in Southern 
Palestine at so early a date is sufficiently well ex- 
plained by the modern theory which Maspero x and 
others have developed, and which connects those 
Hebron Hittites with a great migration which ended 
only in the Shepherd Invasion of Egypt. 

Maspero regards the migration as a Canaanitish 
movement, others as a Semitic wave ; but both sides 
hold that in trending southward from the starting- 
point it either pushed forward or dragged along in 
its train some of the Hittites and Amorites, who had 
by that time occupied Northern Syria, and who were 
in the path of the migration. Palestine itself was al- 
ready occupied by many other sons of Canaan, and 
these were obliged to take refuge principally in 
mountain fastnesses. Now, according to the theory, 
the great bulk of the emigrants pushed on and in- 
vaded Egypt ; but some of the fragmentary Hittite 
and Amorite tribes stopped on the way, and were 
left behind in Southern Palestine, scattered among 
the original Canaanitish tribes. Some of these tar- 
ried in the vicinity of Hebron, and founded there a 
town. And the famous Numbers passage 2 would 
seem to teach that these Hittites built Hebron some 
seven years before the main body of emigrant in- 
vaders, who continued on their way, founded Zoan 
in Egypt. 

1 Histoire, p. 161 et seq. 

2 Num. xiii. 22. 



Abraham and Moses. 91 

It is not necessary to infer from the Numbers pas- 
sage, as some have done, that the Shepherds were 
Hittites. There are many reasons for believing 
with Brugsch that they were Semitics. 1 The con- 
nection between the two cities in the mind of the 
Numbers writer probably was, not that they were 
necessarily founded by the same race, but were the 
first-fruits of one and the same migration. But 
it will be perceived that the very presence of a few 
Hittites in Southern Palestine as early as Abram's 
day, when the real home of the Khita much later on 
was still in Northern Syria, would show, if any confi- 
dence is to be placed in the theory referred to, that 
the Shepherd Invasion had already occurred when 
Abram came to Hebron. 

As such, therefore, it is a valuable hint, in its 
chronological bearing, which the sacred writer gives 
when, once and again, we are told that in going 
through the land Abram found therein, not simply 
Canaanites, which would not have been so decisive, 
but Amorites, and particularly " sons of Heth," and 
that he found a home of the latter at Hebron. 

There can, therefore, scarcely remain a doubt that 
the invaders were already in Egypt when Abram 
came into Palestine, just as the chronology of 
Register I. would indicate ; and the conclusion is 
then irresistible that his Pharaoh was a Shepherd 
king. 

1 History, vol. i. p. 198. 



92 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

We need not dwell on the yet farther confirma- 
tion of the conclusion thus reached, which the " Set 
Era " of the Tanis tablet furnishes. 

Accepting the tablet as yielding a genuine Shep- 
herd era, w T hose four hundredth year was the first or 
the fifth year of the sole reign of Rameses II., and 
whose initial year was the first year of Salatis of the 
Manetho lists, it is easy enough, comparing the two 
chronologies, to find its points of contact with the 
Hebrew time-period. And it will be found that the 
first year of Salatis coincided with the fifty-ninth 
year before Abram's seventy-fifth year ; so that 
Abram at that date must have been still living in 
Ur, and was but sixteen years old. And accordingly 
the Semitic migration, which issued in the Shepherd 
Invasion, must have started on its way about the 
time of Abram's birth. 

The " Set Era " thus curiously enough confirms 
the correctness of the interpretation that dates the 
Hebrew time-period from the calling of Abraham, 
and also points to Abram's Pharaoh as a Shepherd 
king. 

In view, therefore, of the many circumstances all 
pointing one way, we can scarcely avoid the conclu- 
sion that Abram's Pharaoh was a Shepherd. 

Turning now to the remaining interval of the 
Hebrew time-period, — viz., that between the death 
of Joseph and the Exodus, — it will be interesting 
to note its points of contact with the Egyptian chro- 



Abraham and Moses. 93 

nology of Register I. At the outset attention may be 
drawn to the way in which the Hebrew writer would 
lead us to infer that no marked change occurred in 
the status of the Hebrew people as long as Joseph 
lived, nay, as long as Joseph's brethren lived, nor 
indeed as long as what he styles " that generation " 
lived. It is therefore a curious fact, in this connec- 
tion, that the age of but one of Joseph's brethren, 
Levi, should have been preserved in the Levitical 
Registers. It is as though that life was an important 
link in the chain of life. This w T as the case, indeed, 
from several points of view. It is an important fac- 
tor, e. g., as stated in the second lecture, in deter- 
mining the question how the Hebrew time-period 
must be measured. It may now be said to be an 
equally important factor in its bearing on the special 
point before us ; for the chart shows that if the chro- 
nology of Register I. can be trusted, Levi survived 
the accession of Seti I. one year. It is even possible 
that Levi was born two, or as many as four, years 
before Joseph, instead of but one year, as adopted in 
the chart ; in which case his death-year would coin- 
cide with the date of Seti's accession, or even with 
that of Rameses I. Now, if this be a mere coinci- 
dence, it is truly remarkable ; for in either case it 
would be in such perfect accord with the data of 
both stories. For as to the Hebrew story, e. g., 
while it suggests that no special change occurred in 
the position of the Hebrews until all of Joseph's 



94 Abraham 7 Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

generation passed away, it undoubtedly suggests that 
no long interval elapsed between the end of Joseph's 
generation and the accession of the " new" Pharaoh, 
with whom came a marked change ; and the chro- 
nology of Register I. would abundantly sustain that 
suggestion. 

Then, as to the Egyptian story, if the close of 
Joseph's generation really coincided with the acces- 
sion of Seti I. (and yet more with that of Eameses I.), 
the Egyptian history would tell how " new " such a 
Pharaoh was, and how he w r ould regard any claim of 
Joseph's people on the national gratitude, even if he 
knew aught of Joseph's history. He belonged to a 
new Dynasty. Its founder, Rameses I., reigned at 
most but a very few years, it is probable not more 
than two. 1 The Dynasty was in no sense a legiti- 
mate Dynasty, except that it was recognized by the 
priests of the day as the only possible government. 
A de facto government was perforce recognized as 
one, dejare. Rameses I. and Horus, the last king of 
Dynasty XVIII., may have been brothers, as Brugsch 
believes, 2 and both may have been sons of King Ai, 
as he also suggests ; but even thus Ai himself was 
but a courtier to Amenophis IV., and, simply by con- 
sent of the priests, mounted an empty throne. More- 
over, added to the irritations which the consciousness 
of the " newness " of the Dynasty w r ould occasion, it is 

1 Maspero's Histoire, p. 214. 

2 History, vol. i. p. 460, and vol. ii. p. 8. 



Abraham and Moses. 95 * 

to be remembered that Horns and Rameses I. were 
contemporaries of Amenophis IV. the Reformer king; 
and it is even possible that Seti himself was also living 
at the time, though young. That they were all out 
of sympathy with the religious revolution of the 
" Aten " king, is well known. It was Horus who re- 
established the old religion and dishonored Ameno- 
phis IV. and his monuments. He probably based his 
best claim for recognition on his religious partisan- 
ship. When, then, we recall the probable influence 
of Joseph on the establishment of that purer "Aten " 
worship, it can be understood how a would-be sym- 
pathizer with the old religious forms would be in- 
clined to persecute rather than to favor Joseph's 
people. At any rate, Seti I., if for any reason, 
political or otherwise, he desired to check the 
power and influence of the Hebrews, would be 
the very man who would feel no compunctions in 
doing so. 

His " knowing not Joseph" can be taken literally, 
or to mean his entire ignoring of Joseph and his 
services to the State. 

There is nothing, therefore, in Egyptian history or 
chronology that would forbid our regarding Seti I. 
(or even Rameses I.) as the Pharaoh under whom 
began the change in the status of the Hebrew people, 
— a change that went from bad to worse rapidly 
enousrh, until in the time of Rameses II. the Hebrews 
had become slaves, obliged to do such duty to the 



96 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

State as slaves had to render. They worked in quar- 
ries, — the most dreaded toil of Egypt. They made 
bricks, they dragged stone, and they builded; and all 
under circumstances that made the burden of life 
intolerable. 

It is now certain, at any rate, that it was under 
Eameses II., the son of Seti I., that the Hebrews 
built Pithom, one of the two special cities mentioned 
in Ex. i. 11 as built by them for Pharaoh as store- 
cities. The discoveries of M. Naville, under the aus- 
pices of the " Egypt Exploration Fund," have settled 
that point beyond dispute. And as that is so, it 
must also have been he who devised that cruel method 
of controlling the increase of the Hebrew population 
which in the providence of God issued in the finding 
of Moses by the Pharaoh's own daughter and in the 
adoption into the royal family itself of one of the 
Hebrew children. 

To the objection some may urge, that the narrative 
suggests that the Pharaoh for whom the store-cities 
were built was the same as the "new king," it may 
be replied that this does not necessarily follow. The 
sacred writer does not pretend to accentuate the dif- 
ferent Pharaohs of the story with precision. The 
narrative is concerned, not with the succession of 
the sovereigns, but with the spirit which actuated the 
whole Dynasty. There is a parallel instance of 
the indifference of sacred writers to the succession 
of kings, in the story of the fall of Samaria that 



Abraham and Moses. 97 

issued in the Israelitish captivity. One reading the 
seventeenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings 
would be sure to imagine that the " king of Assyria " 
of the fifth verse was the same as the king of the 
sixth verse. But in point of fact this was not so. 
The king of verse 5 was Shalmaneser; and the 
king of verse 6 was Sargon, a usurper. The 
writer was not ignorant of the fact, as some have 
imagined, but was not concerned with the mere 
historical succession. Similarly, in the story before 
us, a study of the narrative with the help of chrono- 
logical indications will reveal therein at least four 
Pharaohs, and those not all immediate successors 
one to another. The " new king " may easily, 
therefore, have been Seti I. or even his father, 
though it is certain that it was Rameses II. for 
whom the cities were built, and in whose time 
Moses was born and from whose face he fled in his 
fortieth year. 

The attempt to fix Moses' place in the Egyptian 
chronology is made an easy task by the certain data 
regarding his place in the Hebrew time-period fur- 
nished by the Levitical Registers. Moses' place in 
the Hebrew time-period is as certain a time-factor 
as is the place of Joseph. 

Comparing then the two chronologies, it will not 
be so very difficult to differentiate from the Hebrew 
story the reigns of the Pharaohs to which the events 
of Moses' life may be assigned. 

7 



98 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

(1) The first third of his life would seem to have 
fallen entirely in the long reign of Rameses II. 

Register I. would indicate that Moses' birth oc- 
curred when Rameses was at least thirty-eight years 
old, and consequently when he had been reigning 
alone about nine years. He was old enough, four 
years previous to this date, to have sons in at least 
formal command of army corps ; so that it is easy 
enough to understand how the " Pharaoh's daughter " 
who found and adopted Moses could be Rameses' 
own daughter. She was doubtless quite young, and 
her father may have looked on her adoption of the 
babe as a child's fancy, which there was no special 
reason to disallow. 

(2) By the time Moses reached his fortieth year, 
the Hebrew date that for the time terminated his 
Egyptian career, Rameses II. would be about seventy- 
eight years old, with yet some eighteen years of life 
before him. Inordinately large as was his family, 
death had been busy among them ; for the Pharaoh 
who really succeeded him was his thirteenth son ! 
Rameses indeed associated this son Mineptah with 
himself on the throne some twelve years before his 
death ; so that Moses fled from the face of Rameses 
about six years before Mineptah became colleague- 
Pharaoh. Attention may be drawn to this circum- 
stance ; for, considering Moses' peculiar history and 
the position he would occupy among the royal 
princes as the adopted son of Mineptah's sister, it 



Abraham ami Moses. 99 

could scarcely happen that Mineptah should be ig- 
norant of his flight, or that he would condone his 
offence when he returned. But God testified to 
Moses in Midian that " they were dead that sought 
his life." Putting these circumstances together, 
they would certainly exclude Mineptah as a possible 
Exodus Pharaoh. 

(3) It will be observed that Moses' eightieth year, 
which the Hebrew story synchronizes with the Exo- 
dus date, is made by Register I. to coincide with the 
close of Dynasty XIX., — not, be it observed, neces- 
sarily with the close of Siptah's reign, as the chart 
suggests, but with the close of the third of the three 
brief reigns after Mineptah (whatever the order of 
succession may be), with which Pharaoh the Dynasty 
ended and Anarchy began. This point will, however, 
occupy us in the closing lecture, and so need not 
detain us now. 

(4) The one hundred and twentieth year of Moses 
— the Hebrew date of his death, and the date that 
concluded the period of the wandering and began the 
period of the Palestine conquest and occupation — is 
made to synchronize in Register I. with the tenth year 
of Rameses III., — a date which, as will be seen in the 
next lecture, is one of singular importance in our in- 
quiry ; for not until then, or at the very earliest not 
until the year before, would it have been possible for 
the Hebrews to have entered Palestine so well. In 
this way it is possible to fit Moses' entire career, as 



100 Abraham j Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

given in Hebrew story, to the Egyptian chronology 
and history. 

Before concluding, it may be well to draw atten- 
tion to a single example of the way in which the 
sacred writer, while not attempting (as has been 
said) to accentuate the succession of Pharaohs with 
precision, nevertheless makes no mistake in devel- 
oping the progress of the story. We refer to the 
statement of Ex. ii. 23, "And it came to pass in 
process of time, that the king of Egypt died." Now, 
most writers have considered that the reference here 
is to the death of Rameses II., and then, jumping 
to the conclusion that the next Pharaoh men- 
tioned — the one to whom Moses was sent — must 
consequently have been his son, have inferred 
thence that Mineptah must have been the Exodus 
Pharaoh. But it is only needful to compare the 
two chronologies to see that this is a mistake. The 
two chronologies would show that the reference 
in verse 23 in all probability is not to Rameses 
II. at all. The very form of expression, " It came 
to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt 
died," would seem to imply that a considerable 
time had elapsed since Moses' flight, — certainly a lon- 
ger time than the eighteen years Register I. would 
allow for the interval to the death of Rameses II. 
Further, the narrative introduced by the passage in 
question certainly suggests the near approach of the 
end. The king who died, therefore, " in the process 



Abraham and Moses. 101 

of time," and so late on as to be quite near the 
Exodus, may have been the second, or, as is more 
likely, the third successor of Eameses II., but neither 
Rameses himself nor Mineptah his son. The state- 
ment is made at all, to introduce a new chapter 
in the story, and, as is evident, to mark one of its 
later stages. It shows that lapse of time did not 
mend matters, and that the death to which he 
refers inaugurated a new stage of cruelty. The 
connection implies that with the accession of the 
new Pharaoh — i. e., the latest Pharaoh — there 
was a superadded cruelty, which led the Hebrews 
to cry mightily unto God, and which led God to 
interfere. 

The next lecture will deal with the date of the 
Exodus, and attempt to identify it with the close 
of Dynasty XIX. And Register I. indicates that the 
Dynasty did not end with Mineptah, but with one of 
three Pharaohs who followed him. Allowance must 
accordingly be made for these three regnal periods ; 
and, allowance thus made, the conclusion must be 
reached, that the passage in question did not refer 
to Rameses II. at all. It is but necessary, indeed, 
to properly weigh what is said of any Pharaoh in the 
narrative, to perceive how any interval of time, and 
any number of Pharaohs required by the Egyptian 
chronology, can find room in the story. 

In conclusion, we may say that the general har- 
mony of the two stories is assured. 



102 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

It only remains for us, now, to compare the two 
chronologies somewhat more carefully, so as to 
gather thence, if possible, a more precise indication 
as to the era of the Exodus, and who w r as its 
Pharaoh, — a task to which we will next address 
ourselves. 



The Exodus Era. 103 



LECTURE V. 

THE EXODUS ERA. 

THE close of Dynasty XIX. is involved in almost 
as much obscurity as its rise. Uncertainty 
attaches not only to the regnal periods, but to 
the order of the succession, and so renders any 
argument based on the history of the Dynasty as 
yet but hypothetical. Accordingly, its history is 
variously handled by Egyptologists. All authori- 
ties, however, agree in the view that the Dynasty 
came to an end amid disaster and confusion. Were 
there no other ground for this view, the so-called 
" Great Harris Papyrus of Rameses III." would be 
sufficient to settle the point. It was found near 
Medinet-Abou, 1 and is dated the thirty-second year 
of Rameses III. 

In the earlier part of the document, Rameses re- 
counts his good deeds, and commends to the peo- 
ple the son whom he was at the time associating 
on the throne. He then tells the story of his 

1 The Arabs who sold it to Mr. Harris refused to indicate the place of 
their " find." It is probable that it originally belonged to the royal library, 
but was hidden with other works in some extempore grotto for safety, and 
there remained until these last days. 



104 Abraham j Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

own succession, prefacing this portion with a very 
brief but important statement respecting the period 
of anarchy that had been brought to an end by 
Setnekht his predecessor, now generally regarded as 
the founder of Dynasty XX. 

Remembering the habitual reticence of the Egyp- 
tians respecting national disasters, the formal state- 
ment of the Harris Papyrus is certainly remarkable, 
and deserves more attention than it has already 
received. It cannot be a reminiscence, as some 
have imagined, of the Hyksos period, — for that 
came to an end, as is known, with the rise of 
Dynasty XVIII. ; and according to the papyrus, the 
period to which it refers came to an end with the 
rise of Dynasty XX. 

The date thus so explicitly assigned to it, coupled 
with a fair interpretation of its language, may not 
unfairly suggest, we believe, that we have in this 
papyrus of Rameses III. a veritable reference to the 
Hebrew Exodus. 

The papyrus is a large one, measuring some 
133 feet in length, admirably preserved, and is 
divided into seventy-nine leaves. Of these, the last 
iive comprise the historical part so called ; and it 
is simply the first paragraph of this historical part 
with which this inquiry is concerned. 

The historical part of the papyrus was first trans- 
lated and published by Dr. Eisenlohr in 1872. 1 The 

1 Der grosse Papyrus Harris, Leipzig, 1872. 






The Exodus Era. 105 

same year he read before the London " Society of 
Biblical Archaeology " a paper " on the political con- 
dition of Egypt before the reign of Rameses III., 
probably in connection with the establishment of the 
Jewish religion." 1 This paper furnishes an English 
translation of the historical part of the papyrus. 

In 1873-1874 Dr. Eisenlohr revised his transla- 
tion of this part, and added a translation of the 
greater part of the papyrus. 2 The same year 
Dr. Birch published a translation of the first third 
of the document. 3 A complete translation of the 
papyrus will be found in the " Records of the Past," 4 
under the joint authority of Drs. Eisenlohr and 
Birch. 

In 1873 M. Chabas, in his " Recherches," 5 trans- 
lates and discusses, in a very patient and scholarly 
way, the last ^ve leaves, paragraph by paragraph, 
severely criticising Dr. Eisenlohr's renderings in 
many places. Dr. Brugsch, also, has given, in his 
" History of Egypt," 6 a translation of the historical 
portion. 

Considering the possible bearing of " the im- 
portant passages," as Brugsch calls them, on the 
Hebrew history, it will be well to compare these 
several translations. Dr. Eisenlohr's is his latest, as 
found in the " Records of the Past," coupled, indeed, 

1 In vol. i. of the Society's " Transactions." 

2 See "Zeitschrift " for 1873 and 1874. 3 idem, 1873. 

4 Vols. vi. and viii. 5 Recherches, p. 9. 

6 History, vol. ii. p. 137. 



106 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

with Dr. Birch's authority. This translation reads 
thus : 1 — 

" The land of Kami had fallen into confusion. Every 
one was doing what he wished. They had no superior for 
many years who had priority over the others. The land of 
Egypt was under chiefs of nomes, each person killing the 
other for ambition and jealousy. Other events coming 
after it. Distressing years. A-ar-su a Kharu amongst 
them as chief. He placed the whole country in subjection 
before him ... no offerings were made in the interiors of 
the temples." 

Dr. Brugsch's translation is : — 

" The people of Egypt lived in banishment abroad. Of 
those who lived in the interior of the land, none had any to 
care for him. So passed away long years, until other times 
came. The land of Egypt belonged to princes from foreign 
parts. They slew one another, whether noble or mean. 
Other times came on afterwards during years of scarcity. 
Arisu, a Phoenician, had raised himself among them to be 
a prince, and he compelled all the people to pay him trib- 
ute . . . the gods were treated like the men. They went 
without the appointed offerings in the temples." 

Chabas' translation is : — 

" It happened that the country of Egypt was (or, had 
been) thrust outside. To all who remained in its interior 
there was no master during numerous years in the begin- 
ning. During a time the Egyptian country belonged to 
Oerou, 2 governing the cities. It was extraordinary, sur- 
prising. Other times came afterwards for a few years. 

1 Vol. viii. p. 46. 

2 It means " governors," literally, " mouths," — i. e., men by whose " word " 
the people were ruled. Compare Gen. xli. 40. 



The Exodus Era. 107 



Areos, a Syrian, was an Oer among them, and the whole 
country paid homage to him . . . and the gods became 
like men. Offerings were no more made in the temples." 

It will at once be observed that the special part 
of the paragraph of the papyrus with which this 
review is concerned is simply the first sentences of 
the passage, — viz., those translated by Drs. Eisenlohr 
and Birch, 

" The land of Kami had fallen into confusion. Every 
one was doing what he wished. They had no superior ; " 

and by Dr. Brugsch, 

" The people of Egypt lived in banishment abroad. Of 
those who lived in the interior of the land none had any to 
care for him ; " 1 

and by Chabas, 

" It happened that the country of Egypt had been thrust 
outside. To all who remained in its interior there was no 
master." 2 

It will be observed that the translations of the 
clauses by Brugsch and Chabas quite agree, while 
that of Dr. Eisenlohr seems to be at best but a 
free translation. There is no wonder, therefore, that 
Brugsch should animadvert, as he does, on the labor 

1 The original in his " Geschichte Aegyptens " (Leipzig, 1877), p. 589, 
reads : " Das Volk yon Aegypten lebte in der Verbannung im Auslande. 
Jedermann der im Innern des Landes geblieben war, entbehrte eines 
Fiirsorgers." 

2 The original reads, " II est arrive, que l'Egypte s'etait jetee au dehors ; " 
or, literally, " fut le pays d'Egypte jete au dehors." 



108 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

of his predecessors, evidently alluding to Drs. Eisen- 
lohr and Birch, affirming that " several of them had 
completely mistaken the sense of the document just 
in its most important passages.'' 

There can be no doubt as to the general correct- 
ness of Brugsch's and Chabas' renderings, after ex- 
amining the elaborate discussion the latter gives to 
these two clauses of the papyrus, justifying, as he 
does, his translation (of the first clause more particu- 
larly) by numerous illustrations of the use of the 
original words in a variety of connections, and trans- 
lating the clause with as much precision as a literal 
rendering can make of it. 

He shows that the verb Jj5^,a "khaa," which 
he translates by "jeter" or "se Jeter," has indeed 
two meanings, — (1) " to throw, as in throwing 
stones or to cast into the water ; " and (2) " to leave, 
forsake, quit." He also mentions, and with exam- 
ples of its use in that sense, a secondary meaning of 
" se jeter," — viz., " to throw one's self, to withdraw, 
escape, flee ; " so that, as he says, " we would not 
therefore be too bold if we translated, the country of 
Egypt had fled outside, for it is the veritable meaning 
or intention of the phrase." And he concludes that 
"the translation which indicates an emigration of 
the Egyptian population is therefore founded on the 
incontestable value of the Egyptian words ; it is 
also justified by the context," — referring to the next 



The Exodus Era. 109 

clause, where distinct mention is made of those who 
remained in the country. 

It should be added that Dr. Birch seems to have 
been so far influenced by Chabas' discussion as to 
have modified the view taken in the " Records of 
the Past ; " for in his " History of Egypt" 1 he wrote : 
" The interval between the reign of Siptah and his 
successor Setnekht was one of great disturbance. 
From the ' Great Harris Papyrus ' it appears that a 
great exodus took place in Egypt. In consequence 
of the troubles for many years, it says, there was no 
master." 

It should also be added that the Hieroglyphic 
Dictionaries have adopted the two significations of 
the word urged by Chabas, — both the great Dic- 
tionary by Dr. Brugsch 2 and the smaller one of Pier- 
ret's, — as also a special Dictionary of this very 
papyrus by Dr. Piehl. 

It should be mentioned, moreover, that none of 
the authorities quoted identify the papyrus "Exo- 
dus " with that of the Hebrews. The translation of 
the clauses insisted upon by Chabas, virtually agreed 
to by Dr. Brugsch, and apparently adopted by Dr. 

i Page 136. 

2 In Brugsch's "Diet. Hierog.," vol. iii. p. 1025, the verb "khaa" is as- 
signed the two meanings, — (1) "to lay aside, cast away, reject;" and (2) 
" to demit, relinquish." 

In Pierret's " Vocab. Hie'rog.," p. 391, he quotes Chabas, and gives, (1) "to 
put aside, throw, reject, or send away;" (2) "to leave, quit." 

In Dr. Karl Piehl's "Diet, du Pap. Harris, No. I." (Vienna, 1882), p. 69, 
he gives the two meanings, — " expulser, expatrier." 



110 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

Birch may be accepted, therefore, with the greater 
confidence, because based on purely philological 
grounds. 

Aside, therefore, from any specific reference of 
the papyrus, one will not certainly be far out of 
the way, if Chabas' conclusion be accepted, that the 
papyrus statement refers, however obscurely and 
indirectly, to an " emigration from Egypt" for some 
reason, " of a part of its population" — an emigration 
so large, compared with the population left behind, 
that those left behind were no longer able to hold 
the country. 

The context would also suggest that the emi- 
gration was most disastrous in its effects upon the 
country. In some way those left behind found 
themselves without a legitimate head ; and as a con- 
sequence, government not only, but society as well, 
speedily resolved into confusion and anarchy. Then 
the document tells how the country was left a prey 
to its always envious neighbors, and how there re- 
sulted eventually a foreign despotism, which in turn 
was followed by a reaction, of which the papyrus 
speaks, in the shape of a national uprising, and how 
the end came in the re-establishment of a native 
Dynasty, in the person of one Seti the Victorious, 
Rameses' predecessor. It can scarcely be denied 
that such is a fair summary of the teaching of this 
very brief but suggestive narrative of the royal 
scribe of Rameses III. 



The Exodus Era. Ill 

Do we then strain out of this document, in any 
illegitimate or forcible a way, a covert allusion to the 
Hebrew migration and its results ? 

Beyond question, the Hebrew tradition adequately 
explains the story of Rameses. 

(1) The Exodus of the Hebrew population of 
Egypt, "with the mixed multitude" that went out 
with them, was surely large enough to leave the 
northeast part of the Delta comparatively empty. 

(2) The destruction of Pharaoh and of his chosen 
captains and horsemen would sufficiently account 
for the land of Egypt being left " without a head ; " 
rendering it needful, in the first instance, that each 
nome should look out for itself, just as the papyrus 
states, — a condition of things that would inevitably 
lead to the jealousies and ambitions of which the 
papyrus also speaks. 

(3) History would simply repeat itself in the in- 
vasion story. No better opportunity for foreign 
intervention could be furnished than intestine strug- 
gles would afford. 

(4) And history would also simply repeat itself in 
the re-establishment of the native line by a shrewd 
chief, ready to take advantage of his opportunities. 

But this is not all. The propriety of referring to 
the Hebrew Exodus the passage of the papyrus may 
be justified, not only by a fair interpretation of the 
words and the possibility of harmonizing the two 
stories. It is also possible to synchronize the era of 



112 Abraham y Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

the papyrus narrative with the era of the Exodus 
and of the Palestine occupation. 

To be sure, there is an element of uncertainty 
here, which the monuments have not yet removed, 
both as respects the order of the succession and the 
regnal periods of the closing third of Dynasty XIX. ; 
still it is possible, nevertheless, no matter what the 
true order of succession may be, and adopting for 
the regnal periods simply the years which all Egyp- 
tologists would allow, perfectly to effect the syn- 
chronism. Assigning to Mineptah either the eight 
monumental years or the twenty claimed by some, 
and giving to Seti II. his two monumental years or 
the four claimed for him, to Amenmes five, and to 
Siptah seven, 1 we then reach the era of anarchy, and 
then the subsequent re-establishment of the mon- 
archy by Setnekht. And though the precise length 
of time occupied by these events cannot be stated, 
all Egyptologists would agree in allowing for the in- 
terval between the close of Dynasty XIX. and the 
accession of Rameses III. about thirty years, — a 
period certainly long enough and yet not too long. 2 

A glance at the chart will show that the fortieth 
year after the Exodus — i. e., the date of the Palestine 
occupation — would, on the basis of the chronology 
mentioned, coincide with the tenth year of Rameses 

1 Maspero in his " Plistoire," p. 259, says of the Mineptah successors : " The 
Manetho lists seem to attribute to them all but a dozen years at most." 

2 This would abundantly cover the reign of Setnekht, which was not long, 
and the " many years " and " years after " of the papyrus story. 



The Exodus Era. 113 

III., — a date whose importance and bearing on our 
inquiry a very slight acquaintance with the history 
of the reign will reveal. 

It was in the eighth year of Barneses III., but two 
years previous, that occurred the war which, con- 
sidered in its results to Egypt and to Palestine, may 
be regarded as a most marked providential prepa- 
ration for the Hebrew occupation of the promised 
land. 

The story of the war is written in full on Egypt's 
own monuments, and there is not a modern history of 
Egypt but furnishes a more or less detailed account 
of it. 

Maspero may be said to have furnished a philo- 
sophical view of it, 1 though without the remotest ap- 
plication of it to the Hebrew story, or with even a 
hint that it could be so used. According to him, the 
eighth-year war of Eameses III. was in fact a life 
and death struggle between Egypt and a new power, 
— a great confederacy of Asia Minor tribes. It was 
really another wave of migration, comprising Da- 
naens, Tyrseniens, Shakalash (the later Sicilians), 
Teucrians, Lycians, Pelasgians, and a host of other 
tribes. 2 Instead of passing on westward, they marched 
southward, conquering and almost annihilating the 
peoples through whose countries they journeyed. 
They took Northern Syria, and broke up into frag- 

1 Histoire, ch. vi. 

2 Cliabas' Recherches, pp. 30-50 ; Brugsch's History, vol. ii. p. 147. 

8 



114 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

merits the great Hittite Empire, with which Egypt 
had made an alliance in the time of Rameses IL, and 
with which it had maintained friendly relations all 
through that reign and Mineptah's and, as far as is 
known, until anarchy came. 

The Hittites had gradually come to be the domi- 
nating power throughout Syria and Northern and 
Central Palestine, — the only people, indeed, whom 
the Egyptians seem to have regarded as their 
equal. 

But the new power " completely disintegrated " 
the Hittite Empire, as Maspero says, 1 converting so 
much of it as survived the crash into a host of petty 
kingdoms without any central authority. Having 
done this, the wave rolled on towards Egypt, and by 
a concerted movement the attack was delivered by 
sea and by land. 

Fortunately for Egypt, all this took time, and the 
long march gave Rameses time to receive them. 
The conflict, which was the turning-point of the war, 
took place in his eighth year, between Raphia and 
Pelusium, under the walls of a fortress called the 
tower of Rameses III. The victory fell to Rameses ; 
and as a result, the confederacy of Asia Minor peo- 
ples was hurled back whence they came, and the 
wave of Asiatics, instead of emigrating to the Ara- 
bian peninsula and the African shores, as had been 
the fashion for centuries before, was obliged to go 

1 Histoire, p. 267. Compare Lenormant's Manuel, vol. i. p. 297. 



The Exodus Era. 115 



westward, ultimately peopling a good part of the 
European peninsulas, especially Italy and the islands, 
where they became the prehistoric and historic peo- 
ples with which all are now familiar. 

But can one help seeing how the Asia Minor mi- 
gration, that so effectually broke the backbone of 
the great Hittite Empire, really prepared the way 
for the entrance into Palestine of the Hebrews under 
Joshua, and for the easier conquest and occupation 
of the land ? 

Undoubtedly, it adequately explains the phenom- 
ena which the Hebrew tradition makes so evident, 
of the almost numberless petty tribes, with their sev- 
eral chiefs, that could all be called " Hittites " or by 
other Canaanitish names, which Joshua set himself 
to conquer. 

Moreover, as all historians agree, Eameses needed 
no more to conduct in person a campaign in that 
direction. That great victory of his eighth year did 
not end his wars. He had another in his eleventh 
year ; but it was in the West, against the Libyans, 
who were aided by some of those same Asia Minor 
peoples, who seem to have fled for safety in their 
ships to the Libyan coasts. But they met with such 
a defeat that the Libyans never after disturbed 
Egypt. 

Barneses III. also had a campaign, a naval one, 
against the Arabians, and some minor expeditions 
into the Sinaitic peninsula, whereby he restored to 



116 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

the realm those ancient mining-districts. It should 
be observed, in passing, that the very fact shows that 
they had been lost to Egypt; and, moreover, it is 
clear that by that time the Hebrews had been long 
out of the way. In a few years Rameses was able 
to reconstitute the dominion of Egypt to proportions 
it had not known, certainly since the time of Seti II. 
We say Seti II. ; for it is curious to know, what is as- 
sured by the monuments, that the Egypt of Rameses 
II., as respects the eastern Delta and its Syrian rela- 
tions, continued to be the Egypt not only of Mi- 
neptah but of Seti IL, his son. There is nothing all 
through those years to indicate the slightest trouble 
at home or in their foreign relations, at least in that 
direction, during those two reigns. 

It is because of such facts as these that so many 
feel compelled to give up the view that Mineptah 
was the Exodus Pharaoh. It was not, as far as 
known, until the disaster occurred, whatever it 
may have been, that inaugurated the anarchy of 
the Harris Papyrus, that any change occurred in 
Egypt's relations with the East. Rameses III. found 
the Syrian province gone, and Bedouins to the east 
of the Delta contending for its possession. Even 
after the victory of his eighth year, he seems to 
have been content with the result that hurled back 
the new Asiatics whence thev came ; for he seems to 
have maintained only a semblance of authority on 
the eastern Mediterranean coast, simply maintaining 



The Exodus Era. 117 



garrisons there. Crushed by the Italo-Greek in- 
vaders, as some call them, from their ultimate locale, 
and impressed by Rameses' great victory, the Syrians 
made no concerted effort for independence, and the 
petty tribes in Palestine proper found enough to 
do in contesting with the Hebrews the possession 
of that land. If there were disturbances of the bal- 
ance of power on the coast or elsewhere, these were 
but partial and temporary, and they were easily 
enough reduced by the generals in the neighboring 
garrisons. As Chabas says, Rameses III. " did not 
put these small conflicts among his victories, because 
he was not there in person ; but they do explain the 
presence of a Khitan chief and an Amorite chief in 
the pictures portraying nations subjugated." 

It may be added that the state of things thus 
described can also explain the fact that some 
"Aperiu" are mentioned in the reign of Rameses 
III., — i.e., some "Hebrews," if one may identify the 
two names. One argument against the identification, 
for which so much may be said, 1 urged by those who 
disallow it, is that a band of "Aperiu" are mentioned 
in this reign and in that of Rameses IV., it being 
alleged that this could not be if the "Aperiu" be 
" Hebrews." But all becomes clear enough by bear- 
ing in mind the relations Rameses III. sustained with 
Palestine and the Syrian peoples. It can be under- 

1 For a discussion of the identification of the "Aperiu" with the Hebrews, 
see the special "Essay on the Aperiu" appended to these Lectures. 



118 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

stood that if Barneses' generals could capture a Hit- 
tite and an Amorite chief, they could also capture 
some Hebrews, in a possible conflict or intervention. 
This explanation is, moreover, the more probable, 
because the " Aperiu " of both Rameses III. and IV. 
are described as war captives, those of the latter even 
as "bowmen," whereas the " Aperiu " of Rameses II. 
are pictured simply as foreign slaves. 

Taking the data of these years, however, that are 
unquestionable, how well do they fit in with the 
Hebrew time-period ? There are, indeed, not only 
the general arguments, already referred to suffi- 
ciently, that would point to the tenth, or even the 
ninth, year of Rameses III. as the earliest possible 
date when the Hebrews could cross into Palestine, 
but there are incidental details that neatly fit into 
both stories, — e. g., (1) The date of the reconquest 
by Rameses III. of the mining regions of the Sinaitic 
peninsula, when the Hebrews could not possibly have 
been near; (2) The existence of the Amorite tribes 
that faced Moses and the Hebrews at Kadesh, 1 — the 
very position that could well enough give trouble to 
an Egyptian garrison. It is therefore certainly more 
than a mere coincidence that an Amorite chief 
should be among the chiefs captured by Rameses' 
generals. (3) The peculiar significance, in view of 
the history recounted, of the description given (Josh, 
i. 4) of the promised land the Hebrews were about 

1 Deut. i. 7, compared with verses 19, 20, and 41-46. 






The Exodus Era. 119 



to enter, as " the land of the Hittites." The phrase 
but a year or two before would have struck terror 
into the minds of the Israelites. When uttered by 
Joshua, it does not sound so formidable. It is as 
though he said, " the land that was, but is no lon- 
ger, the Hittites' land," referring to the utter disin- 
tegration of the once great empire by the Asiatic 
invaders. 

Thus, on philological and historical grounds, it is 
equally possible to maintain that in the brief story 
of the Harris Papyrus there was a veritable refer- 
ence to the Hebrew migration. There is not an 
incident of the era, as told by the Hebrew narrator, 
that is inconsistent with the state of things suggested 
by the Rameses' story. Mention may be made of 
even so small an incident as the question whether 
the Hebrews fled or were thrust out. Both were 
true in point of fact ; and, curiously enough, the 
Egyptian word of the papyrus, "khaa," as Chabas 
shows, may have either or both meanings. As far 
as that word is concerned, the people to whom it 
refers may have been " thrust out " or may have 
" thrust themselves out." If it be suggested that 
the allusion of the papyrus, though a possible allu- 
sion to the Hebrew Exodus, is but indirect and not 
decisive, it may be replied that it was not to be ex- 
pected that any allusion at all, much less a distinct 
mention of the misfortune, would be made on an 
Egyptian monument. The Egyptians could scarcely 



120 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

be expected to perpetuate on their walls or inscribe 
on a papyrus roll an account of a disaster. As is 
well known, allusions to even the Shepherd conquest 
and domination are but few, and those most indirect 
and uncertain of explanation. Nevertheless, the al- 
lusion in the Harris Papyrus is clear enough. It is 
perfectly applicable to the Hebrew Exodus, but to 
no other known event of that era. 

Further, if it be wondered at that but a single 
copy of this invaluable State document should have 
reached our day, it may be said that it was simply a 
good Providence that preserved this single copy to 
Egyptology ; for it came near being destroyed by an 
explosion near Mr. Harris' house in Alexandria, that 
seriously damaged other manuscripts. The Arab 
excavators who sold the document to Mr. Harris in 
1856 showed him a sack full of papyri that, as they 
affirmed, were found in the same place. Unfortu- 
nately, he was able to buy but a few of them, among 
them being the so-called " Harris Magic Papyrus." 
As Chabas says, u What has become of the rest? — a 
sack full of papyri, how many problems might have 
been solved ! " 

It may be mentioned also, in explanation of the 
rarity of any monumental reference to the anarchy 
of the papyrus, that we may be thankful that Ka- 
meses III. felt it to be needful to mention it at all ; 
else we might have had no monumental reference 
whatever to it. He had good reason for mentioning 



Tlie Exodus Era. 121 

it. He was associating his son upon the throne, be- 
ing anxious to secure the succession. 1 He did not 
feel his tenure of the crown to be so secure as to re- 
quire no justification. His reference, therefore, to 
the circumstances under which Setnekht mounted 
the throne, to which he himself succeeded, was really 
an appeal to both the gratitude and the fears of the 
nation. 

Not, however, to delay on these points, there is 
beyond question good reason to believe that the 
papyrus alludes, and distinctly enough, to the He- 
brew migration. Such a reference is justified by a 
fair interpretation of its language, by its chronology, 
by its general agreement with the Hebrew tradi- 
tion, and, it may be added, by the impossibility of 
referring the Rameses' story to any purely Egyptian 
emigration from Egypt, of that or indeed of any 
other era. 

Before concluding, allusion may be made to the 
different way in which Maspero interprets both the 
allusion of the Rameses' story and the Hebrew tradi- 
tion. Instead of seeing in the Hebrew Exodus an 
adequate explanation of the anarchy of which the 
papyrus speaks, Maspero sees in the Exodus simply 
a consequence of the anarchy. He says 2 that " one 
can easily understand how, in the midst of general 
disorder, a foreign persecuted tribe should quit its 

1 He lived but two years afterward. 

2 Histoire, p. 262. 



122 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

quarters and gain the desert highway without being 
energetically combated by its ancient masters, them- 
selves too menaced to trouble themselves much about 
the flight of a band of slaves." We quote this at 
length, because it is a fair example of that free criti- 
cism of Scripture facts in which many writers indulge. 
The Bible story reveals no such period of internal 
disorder previous to the Exode, but rather a gov- 
ernment undisturbed, albeit tyrannical. Moreover, 
Israel's Exode, strictly considered, was not a flight 
but a thrusting out, although Pharaoh did soon 
change his mind, and did feel it to be worth while 
" energetically " to combat the departing band of 
slaves. This Pentateuchal story is, moreover, in pre- 
cise accord with the papyrus story. Maspero's ver- 
sion of the Exodus certainly receives no countenance 
from the Egyptian scribe. That papyrus is a veritable 
state document, and, interpreted fairly, tells of an 
emigration from Egypt of some of its inhabitants, and, 
if language means anything, also tells us that the pro- 
longed anarchy quelled by Setnekht was a consequence 
of that emigration. It cannot, without violence to 
the construction, be considered as teaching that the 
emigrants took advantage of an era of confusion. 

The two traditions point therefore to the same 
sequence of events, — the disaster, whatever it was, 
came first; confusion ensued. It is certainly refresh- 
ing to find, therefore, that on so many grounds it 
is possible to identify the Egyptian emigration as 



The Exodus Era. 123 

the veritable Hebrew Exodus. There is no need to 
cast aspersions on the Hebrew tradition, nor on the 
Hebrews. 

It should be stated that Maspero was not indulging 
in any formal criticism of the papyrus. He was 
combatting the view that looks upon Mineptah as 
the Pharaoh of the Exodus. He was seeking to 
identify Seti II., with whom he ends the Dynasty, as 
that Pharaoh. He knew that the period of the three 
brief reigns following Mineptah's was an era of con- 
tested successions, and he finds " only in the years 
that precede and follow Seti II. conditions favorable 
to an Exode." He looks on that era as one of con- 
fusion, to which he could refer the papyrus lan- 
guage ; amid which confusion, he imagines, the 
Hebrews, seizing their chance, departed. 

But not only, as we have seen, does the Harris 
Papyrus really tell another story ; the Egyptian his- 
tory itself, as respects those closing reigns of Dynasty 
XIX., will not support Maspero's view. There is an 
order of succession of the three Pharaohs, which we 
may venture to call the monumental order and for 
which much may be said, that will equally avoid the 
need of identifying Mineptah as the Exodus Pharaoh, 
and of regarding the Exodus as occurring in an era 
of confusion, — an order, it is claimed, that may be 
made in a remarkable way to harmonize with both 
the monuments and the Hebrew tradition. And to 
this final point we devote our last lecture. 



124 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 



LECTURE VI. 

THE EXODUS PHARAOH. 

WHICH king it was who thrust the Hebrews 
out of Egypt, is still a matter of conjecture. 
It can be said, however, that during the past few 
years the problem has been brought within narrower 
limits. 

Until recently Egyptologists have been divided as 
to even the Dynasty of the Exodus Pharaoh ; some 
being strongly in favor of assigning him to Dynasty 
XVIII., while others, following De Eouge's lead, 
preferred Dynasty XIX. 1 Happily, the labors of the 
Egypt Exploration Fund Committee have decided 
the question as between the two Dynasties. 

It was M. Naville, the Committee's able explorer, 
who, while unearthing the mounds at Tel-el-Maskhuta, 
had the good fortune to discover that they covered 
the long-sought store-city Pithom, one of the two 
such towns built for Pharaoh by the Hebrews. And 
he was able, by the evidence of monuments found 
upon the spot, to connect the place in a very con- 
vincing way with Eameses II. of Dynasty XIX. as 

1 Report on Egyptian Studies, 1867, p. 27. 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 125 

its founder, proving beyond appeal that Rameses II. 
was one at least of the Pharaohs who oppressed the 
Hebrews. 1 

Accordingly, the Exodus story must be harmonized, 
if it is ever to be done, with the era of Dynasty XIX. 
And the practical question, therefore, to be answered 
is, whether it is at present possible to gather from 
the monumental history of that Dynasty any hint as 
to who the Exodus Pharaoh must have been. 

In the last lecture the attempt was made to iden- 
tify the Exodus as the disaster which brought Dy- 
nasty XIX. to a close, and which, according to the 
" Great Harris Papyrus," inaugurated that period of 
anarchy which Setnekht, founder of Dynasty XX., 
brought to an end. 

It is evident, therefore, that the question of this 
lecture will be answered if we can ascertain who the 
last Pharaoh of Dynasty XIX. really was. 

1 See Naville's "Pithom," pp. 11-13. Lepsius, in the " Zeitschrift " for 
1883, Part II., published an article in which he declined to admit M. Naville's 
identification, and restated his old view of the positions of Pithom and Barne- 
ses. The article was really a too early reply to a simple letter of Naville's, in 
which he scarcely did more than announce his discovery. Nobody doubts 
that had Lepsius lived to see the multiplied proofs for the identification gath- 
ered in the Committee's first Memoir, he would have been convinced as others 
have been. No other Egyptologist of eminence has combated the identifica- 
tion. Brugsch early gave his adhesion to it, though it obliged him to give up 
a pet theory (see two articles of his, one in the " Deutsches Revue," Ber- 
lin, for October, 1883, and the other in the number for March, 1884). Ebers 
also cordially accepts it (see "Zeitschrift," 1885, Part II.). A translation of 
Ebers' article may be found in the "Academy," May 23, 1885. W. Pleyte 
also accepts the discovery (see "Academy," June 6, 1885). The French Egyp- 
tologists have also given in their adhesion, voiced by the eminent Eugene 
Revillout (see his letter to the " Academy," April 4, 1885). 



126 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

It has been already stated that an element of un- 
certainty remains as to the order of succession of the 
last three Pharaohs with whom the monuments seem 
to close Dynasty XIX. , — viz., Seti II., Amenmes, 
and Siptah. 

Egyptologists agree that Amenmes preceded Sip- 
tah, but they differ as to the position to be assigned 
to Seti II., — whether he is to be placed before or after 
the other two ; in other words, whether he should 
be regarded as immediate successor to Mineptah or 
should close the Dynasty. 

At best, therefore, it can only be affirmed at pres- 
ent, by those who reject Mineptah as the Exodus 
Pharaoh, 1 that he must have been either Seti II. or 
Siptah. 

1 The reign of Mineptah is sufficiently well indicated on the monuments. 
Chabas, in his " Recherches " (p. 79 et seq.), has industriously gathered every 
known fact and hint respecting him. 

There are monuments of the time when he was yet crown prince, and others 
of his associated reign with his father, and others still of his reign when his 
son Seti II. was but crown prince ; so that the general character of the reign 
can be regarded as settled. The monuments, indeed, amply illustrate his reign 
from its first to its eighth year, with which it probably closed. He was no 
longer young when he began his sole reign. Maspero (" Histoire," p. 255) 
says he must have been sixty. Nothing seems to have occurred within or 
without its borders in his day that affected the realm. The peace with the 
Hittites was maintained. He had a critical war in his fifth year with the 
Libyans in the West ; but he was victor, and the eastern Delta remained quiet. 
His subsequent reign was peaceful. In the Northeast he maintained the 
garrison posts, even in the land of Amori, and was constantly engaged in 
peaceful labors. Two papyri of his eighth year show that the relations 
between the Delta and Syria were still undisturbed. The same can be said of 
the condition of Egypt under the administration of his son, who succeeded 
him. Seti was indeed associated on the throne before Mineptah's death, and 
there is not a hint of trouble or disaster. The transition from father to son 
reveals no change. The first-born of Pharaoh that was destroyed on the night 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 127 

If it be asked why it is that Egyptologists are thus 
divided on the question at issue, it may be replied 
that it is occasioned by the difficulty of interpreting 
some stucco fragments found in Siptah's tomb, and 
which seem to contradict facts respecting the order 
of the succession gathered from other monumental 
sources. 

Both Champollion and Lepsius visited this tomb ; 
and both have published detailed accounts of the 
inscriptions found therein, at least of such of them 
as were legible. 

The interior of the tomb was in a most deplorable 
condition. Many of the chambers were in utter ruin. 
Everything about the tomb betokened the purpose 
of complete demolition. Fortunately, some royal 
cartouches and portraits and inscriptions had es- 
caped ; and all of these are described, with plates, in 
the two great works of Lepsius and Champollion, 
which give as fair an account of the tomb and its 
contents as could be expected. 1 

It would appear, judging from the phenomena of 
the tomb, that it had been originally constructed for 

of the Passover could not have heen Mineptah's son; for the son who was 
his heir, and who in fact succeeded him, had reigned already as a colleague 
Pharaoh. It is on such grounds as these that it would seem impossible that 
Mineptah could be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Maspero explicitly rejects 
him (see " Histoire," p. 262 et seq.). 

1 Champollion's account is to be found in two magnificent works published 
by the French Government : (1) " La Description de l'Egypte ; " (2) "Mon- 
uments de l'Egypte," etc., with "Notices Descriptives." 

Lepsius' great work, a thesaurus for Egyptologists, the "Denkmaeler," was 
published at the expense of the Prussian Government. 



128 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

one Tauser, — a queen, who was either at the time, 
or subsequently became, Siptah's wife ; and that 
thereafter it was adopted as the intended sepulchre 
for them both. The cartouches of both Tauser and 
Siptah are clearly legible, with portraits of them 
both, singly and together. 

But there are unmistakable traces of usurpation of 
the tomb by one Pharaoh, and, as the descriptions 
and plates of Champollion and Lepsius would show, 
by more than one Pharaoh. 

Now, no difficulty is occasioned by one of these 
usurpations. All Egyptologists agree as to the usur- 
pation of Siptah's tomb years after by Setnekht, 
founder of Dynasty XX. It is the other usurpation 
that occasions perplexity. For it is assuredly per- 
plexing to find, as is alleged, the cartouche of Seti 
II., if it be his, in Siptah's tomb. It would be per- 
plexing, even on the hypothesis that he really suc- 
ceeded Siptah ; for he had his own tomb in the 
neighborhood where he was buried, and there would 
consequently seem to have been no motive for usurp- 
ing a predecessor's. But it is most perplexing of all, 
because all other indications, both of the monuments 
and of the Manetho lists, make Seti II. the immediate 
and unchallenged successor of his father Mineptah. 

Still, Champollion's statement is very explicit. 
He tells how he found, in certain specified parts of 
the tomb, fragments of stucco compositions cover- 
ing the original rock decorations and inscriptions of 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 129 

Siptah and Tauser. which compositions were in honor 
of a Pharaoh who, if Champollion correctly reports 
the fragments, would seem to have been Seti II. 
He adds, what is certainly confirmatory of his state- 
ment, that these stucco compositions (or at least the 
cartouches) had been recovered a second time, and 
by the Pharaoh who is, without doubt, Setnekht. 
Champollion's own conclusion is : " This marks three 
epochs or successive conditions of this corridor." 1 

If it is deemed necessary, therefore, to accept this 
statement without debate, it would of course oblige 
one to regard Seti II. as a successor, not a predeces- 
sor, of Siptah, and consequently the Pharaoh of the 
Exodus. 

And yet, if we accept this conclusion merely from 
the data mentioned by Champollion, we are obliged 
to go counter to the clear indications of all other 
monumental data, which would reverse the order. 
Clearly, then, the only way out of the perplexity 
arising from the fragments of Siptah's tomb is, if pos- 
sible, to interpret them so as to harmonize them with 
the other monumental data. 

Both Chabas and Dr. Eisenlohr believed a mistake 
had been made. 2 Chabas, e. g., believed that it was 
a mistake of the scribe, who made a blunder in in- 
scribing the name, and wrote Seti II. for Setnekht, 

1 Notices Descriptives, vol. i. p. 451. 

2 Chabas' " Recherches," p. 115 ; Dr. Eisenlohr's article in " Transactions 
of Soc. Bib. Arch.," vol. i. 

9 



130 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

the two names being very similar; but this would 
not explain the fact of what would then be two su- 
perimpositions by the same Pharaoh on the original 
inscription. 

Dr. Eisenlohr believed that Champollion was mis- 
taken in his facts. As recently as the winter of 
1884-1885, Dr. Eisenlohr examined the tomb, and 
writes : "My visit settled the question whether right- 
ly or wrongly I had asserted that Champollion erred 
when he said that he had found the name of Seti II. 
in the tomb of Siptah. I examined all the cartouches 
of the tomb, and nowhere found Seti II., but contin- 
ually Setnekht." 1 

It must be added, however, that Lefebure takes 
up the gauntlet for Champollion, and not only 
criticises Dr. Eisenlohr' s article, but shows how 
Lepsius' plates seem to corroborate Champollion's 
statements. 2 

He admits that the cartouche name of Seti II., re- 
ferred to by Dr. Eisenlohr, 3 " is not found, or at least 
is no longer found, in Siptah's tomb ; " but he differs 
from Dr. Eisenlohr in that, as he says, " some traces of 
the second cartouche name of Seti II. 4 are yet seen 
therein." He refers to a sculptured scene, where 



1 Zeitschrift, Part II. for 1885. 

2 Idem, Part IV. for 1885. In Part I. (1886), p. 40, Dr. Eisenlohr replies 
to Lefebure's strictures, maintaining his original position. 

3 Viz., " Ra user cheperu meramen " (Fig. 8), ; i. e., "the sun, lord of crea- 
tion, beloved of Amen." 

* Viz., " Seti merenptah " (Fig. 3) ; i. e., " Seti, beloved of Ptah." 



The 'Exodus Pharaoh. 



131 



Siptah is represented as offering the symbol of the 
goddess Ma 1 to Isis, and to the fact that in one of 



^ 



/WWW 

Fig. 3 



ft 






Fig. 4. 



/gjft\ 



D 



i 



^N 



i 



I 






Fig. 5. 



Fig. 6. 



^2_ 



Fig. 7. 



Siptah's cartouches 2 in the scene two other stucco 

letters, viz., A and ww (i. e., "a" and "n") can be 

distinguished, disposed as in Fig. 4, in the shield at 
just the places where the corresponding letters in 
the name of Seti II. (Fig. 3) would be found. 

He also draws attention to the fact that Lepsius 3 
saw some superimposed stucco fragments (see Fig. 5) 
on a Siptah cartouche. There was in this instance 

a reduplication of the letter (j, almost confounded 

with the symbol for Ptah 4 of Siptah's name (com- 
pare Figs. 6 and 7). This would naturally suggest 

1 I. e., the goddess of Justice and Truth. 

2 Viz., " Ptah meren Siptah " (Fig. 6) ; i. e., " Siptah, beloved of Ptah." 

3 Denkmaeler, III., PI. 201, b. 

4 In cutting cartouches the characters were made to look to the right or 
left, as symmetry required. The two cartouches, e. g., Figs. 5 and 6 (as cut 
on the rock), were the very same, except that the position of the letters is re- 
versed, because Fig. 5 was on the left side and Fig. 6 on the right side of a 
Siptah portrait, and all looked toward him. Thus understood, the argument 
based on the stucco fragments of the first usurpation may be somewhat 
clearer. 



132 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 



the reduplicated *j in the name of Seti II. (Fig. 3). 
Further, Lepsius noted, 1 in another instance, a let- 
ter c (i. e., "p"), strangely enough mixed up (see 
Fig. 7) with the same letter of Siptah's name (com- 
pare Figs. 5 and 6) ; and he adds that of all the 
known Pharaohs concerned, it is only in the name of 
Seti II. (Fig. 3) that these several letters appear in 
a cartouche in that position. And so Lefebure con- 
cludes that " one must see in the fragments the 
name of Seti II." 

He farther argues that " this statement and that 
of Champollion confirm and mutually support each 
other ; for if one of the names of Seti II. is still 
found in the first corridor, it is not surprising that 
Champollion should have found and copied the other 
in the second corridor, as he alleges." 

He adds : " It is useless to suppose, as Chabas does, 

a scribe's error, that substituted the beetle S« in the 
name of Seti II. (Fig. 8) for the crown 0, in the 



1 



1° 



Fig. 8. 



pollion (Fig. 8) is much shorter. 



mi 

Fig. 9. 



same position in Setnekht's name 
(Fig. 9) ; for the proper name of 
Setnekht, which occurs through- 
out the tomb frequently, is every- 
where written as in Fig. 9, and 
the name referred to by Cham- 



» 2 



1 Denkmaeler, III. PI. 201, a. 

2 While the two names are very similar, they differ in two particulars 
(1) In the first clause one has a beetle and the other a crown (or, as some 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 133 

He concludes : " If one wishes to know who 
reigned first, Seti II. or Siptah, he has but to exam- 
ine on the spot which cartouche was written over 
the other." 

Now, if this seems decisive of the question at issue, 
it may be added that there are some things to be said 
on the other side. For there are other monumental 
indications that are indisputable and equally decisive, 
that would forbid the acceptance of Lefebure's con- 
clusion. And it may be further stated that there is 
a possible explanation, which may serve to harmonize 
the facts and thus help to determine the problem. 

First of all, both Manetho and the monuments, 
with the single exception that is so perplexing, make 
Seti II. the immediate successor of his father, Minep- 
tah. All the Manetho lists, e. g., indicate this as the 
succession, and they all end the Dynasty strangely 
enough with " Thuoris " (i. e., Tauser), Siptah's queen. 
To be sure, Eusebius makes Tauser a king, and iden- 
tifies her (or him) with " Homer's Polybus, husband 

explain it, a rising sun) ; so that the one reads " Ra user cheperu " (" Ra, lord 
of creation"), instead of "Ra user Khau" ("Ra, lord of lords," — lit, "of 
rising suns or crowns "). (2) The one inserts and the other omits a clause fre- 
quently used in cartouches, — viz., " Sotep en Ra "(" chosen of Ra "). The re- 
maining clause is the same in each, — "miamen" ("beloved of Amen"). 
The omission in Fig. 8 of the second clause of Fig. 9 would occasion no diffi- 
culty, were there no other difference between the two. It would be simply a 
shorter form of the name. But the substitution of a beetle in the one for the 
rising sun of the other creates a far more serious difficulty, which requires 
special pleading to surmount. Chabas' surmise that the substitution was a 
scribe's mistake is what Lefe'bure rightly refuses to allow. Besides, it does 
not remove the difficulty ; for were it allowed, it would then follow that Set- 
nekht covered over his own cartouche, which would need explanation. 



134 Abraham , Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

of Alcandra ; " but this was a blunder. It is really 
an instance of misplacement ; for there was another 
"Thuoris"in Dynasty XXI., 1 who is connected there 
with the identical tradition as Homer's Polybus, etc. 
At any rate, the monuments settle it that the Tauser 
of Dynasty XIX. was a queen. Why Queen Tauser's 
name should have been inserted in all the Manetho 
lists as ending the Dynasty, instead of her hus- 
band's, it is impossible to say. One may only con- 
jecture. Still, it is evident that the Manetho lists, 
without exception, would make the order of succes- 
sion to be Seti II., Amenmes, and Siptah (as Tauser's 
husband). 

Then, secondly, the monumental indications are 
equally clear. A number of monuments, to begin 
with, represent this Seti II. as crown prince ; e. g., 
there is a sitting statue of Mineptah at Boulak, on 
the left side of which Seti II. is represented with 
the titles of royal son and heir. Some literary works 
were dedicated to him while yet crown prince, show- 
ing that he had literary tastes and was considered 
a patron of learning. It is not to be forgotten that 
his father was advanced in years when he became 
a Pharaoh ; so that it is probable that Seti himself 
while crown prince was no longer young. It is 
certain, moreover, that he was associated with his 
father on the throne, for the associated cartouches 
of the two are found in a rock temple excavated by 

1 See p. 18 of the " Tables," in Lepsius' " Konigsbuch." 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 135 

Mineptah at Sourarieh. 1 Further, the few remains 
of his short sole reign that have survived indicate 
no political complications as accompanying his ac- 
cession, and no disturbance of the ordinary routine 
of a time of peace. The city of Rameses, added to 
by Mineptah, was still occupied under Seti II. as 
an important point and a royal residence. It was 
there, indeed, that he celebrated a special feast in 
honor of his grandfather, who had founded the cult. 
He still kept up the usual communications with the 
frontier garrisons, and maintained the desert wells. 2 
The beginning of his reign, therefore, was peaceful, 
whatever its end was. Its close is unknown. It is 
only known that it was a short reign ; for he died 
not only before his tomb was finished, but when 
most of its galleries and halls had been simply hewn 
out of the rock and left in the rough. His granite 
sarcophagus was found inside with its cover, but in 
an unusual place, — in the very first corridor, which 
itself was not yet completed, even the floor being 
still rough, as though he had been buried therein 
(and hastily) soon after its commencement. Only 
his second year has been yielded by the monuments; 
though some would assign him four years, — mean- 
ing of course for his sole reign. No information has 
reached modern times respecting his family, unless 

1 Chabas' Kechercb.es, p. 116. 

2 Idem, p. 123, where there is a translation of a curious document refer- 
ring to this. 



136 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

a Manetho tradition, soon to be mentioned, can be 
referred to him. At any rate, according to these 
monumental indications, the son succeeded to the 
father and without a challenge. Whether he was 
literally Mineptah's " first-born " cannot of course be 
affirmed or denied. But the " first-born of Pharaoh 
that sitteth upon his throne " (Gen. xi. 5), who was 
destroyed on the eve of the Exodus, could not have 
been Seti II., for this latter prince survived to succeed 
his father. The fact of itself would seem to exclude 
Mineptah as a possible Exodus Pharaoh. 1 

These monumental arguments, as they may be 
called, are indeed so strong that were it not for the 
perplexing fragments in Siptah's tomb, there could 
be no doubt whatever as to the order of the suc- 
cession. The question may therefore well suggest 
itself, Is there any possible hypothesis that can jus- 
tify one in accepting the clear indications of the 
monuments referred to and at the same time explain 
the tomb fragments ? The period is one concerning 
which so little is actually known that conjecture is 
as yet the only resource in trying to solve the prob- 
lem. There are two items in the count, however, 
that seem to be matters of fact, and which, taken 
together, suggest a possible explanation of the phe- 
nomena, both of the tomb and of the other monu- 

1 This is the only hint in the Hebrew story, if it be so interpreted, that 
there was an associated Pharaoh on the throne when Moses had his mem- 
orable interviews. The bearing of this hint on Siptah's case will be seen in 
the sequel. 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 137 

ments, — viz., (1) that there was at the time another 
Seti, a prince who cannot be identified with either 
Seti II. or Setnekht ; and (2) that in some way 
Siptah owed a good deal to Queen Tauser. 

There is monumental evidence, e. g., 1 that there 
was a Seti who was a " Prince of Cush " and who 
bore numerous other titles, proving that he was at 
least a scion of the royal house. He was, moreover, 
not only contemporary with Siptah, but acted as 
a courtier under him. It is never said nor intimated 
that he was Siptah's son. No son of Siptah is ever 
mentioned. In fact, nothing further is known of 
him. He simply appears on two monuments, — one 
found at the island of Sehel and the other at Assouan, 
— and in the pictures is represented as a youth ren- 
dering homage to Siptah, who is crowned. As he bore 
the titles referred to and occupied the usual position 
of a prince of the blood, it may be inferred that he 
had some claim to the succession. Who was he ? 

Now, curiously enough, there is a Manetho tradi- 
tion that one of the Mineptahs of this Dynasty, 
on occasion arising, sent his son Sethos, but a child 
of ^Ye years, into Ethiopia for safety, and himself 
fled thither subsequently. 2 This Mineptah could 
not very well have been the Mineptah who was fa- 
ther to Seti II., — for, as Chabas has shown, he died 
in peace and was peacefully succeeded by his son ; 

1 Chabas' Eecherches, p. 115. 

2 Josephus' Contra Apionem, lib. i. 



138 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

nay, the son had been already associated with the 
father before he died. Also the very young age 
of the child Sethos of the tradition could scarcely 
be harmonized with the relative ages of Mineptah 
and Seti II., as they are ordinarily conceived. But 
Seti II. himself was also a " Mineptah/' and could 
easily enough have had a son named Seti, who, as 
hereditary prince, would be u Prince of Gush," etc. 
Further, while there is monumental evidence that 
the reign of Seti II. began peacefully, there is evi- 
dence that would point to its having been suddenly 
cut short ; so that it is altogether probable that his 
reign ended disastrously. There is monumental evi- 
dence, indeed, of some trouble, — in truth, evidence 
that points to even the kind of trouble that brought 
his rule to an end. There is a large sitting statue 
of Seti II., now in the British Museum, bearing his 
cartouches in three places ; but the syllable " Set " 

(it is the figure of the god Set 3j ) is in all three 

places chiselled out. This of itself points to the 
jealousies of the Theban priests, who were irritated, 
as is known, that the successor to the first Rameses 
should call himself a Seti. In fact, they refused to 
recognize the name, and called him after Osiris in- 
stead. They were doubtless still more irritated that 
the first Mineptah's son should repeat the hated 
name, and yet more so that now, if the hypothesis 
be accepted, the second Seti should give the same 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 139 

name to his heir. This jealousy, coupled with the 
inevitable intrigues of a court made up of a mul- 
titude of descendants of the great Rameses, all 
claiming some status in the royal house, would be 
sure to make the Theban priests all the more ready 
to lend their countenance and support to any royal 
prince, with a shadow of a claim to the throne, who 
would identify himself with their theological predi- 
lections. From this point of view it is certainly, 
then, more than a coincidence that the only pos- 
sible contestant of Seti II., revealed by the monu- 
ments of the period, should be the man, whoever 
he was, who, both by the name he assumed and the 
legend he put in his cartouche, would suggest a re- 
ligious plea for his recognition. He styled himself 
" Amenmes, Prince of Thebes." 

It follows that the Seti who was a prince of the 
blood and afterwards Siptah's courtier may well 
enough have been a son of Seti II. Mineptah, the 
child Sethos of the tradition, sent to Ethiopia for 
safety amid the troubles that harassed the close of 
his father's reign. 

He could not have been the future Setnekht of 
Dynasty XX. ; for in the " Great Harris Papyrus " 
Rameses III. puts forth on behalf of his father no 
claim to royal heirship. It is not said that Setnekht 
was established on his father's throne, but that " the 
gods established him on their own seat." 1 Surely, 

1 Eecords of the Past, vol. viii. p. 46. 



140 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

had such been the fact, Rameses III. would not have 
failed to claim for his father sonship to one of the 
Dynasty XIX. Pharaohs. That he does not, shows 
that Setnekht was simply a leader, possibly allied to 
the royal house, who seized his chance and having 
quelled anarchy took a royal name that seemed at 
least to keep up the traditions. And the name he 
took is itself very suggestive. It is certainly worthy 
of notice that the founder of Dynasty XX., in choos- 
ing his throne name, should have selected that of 
" Seti." Is it to be believed that he would have 
chosen this name had Seti II. been the Pharaoh with 
whom the Dynasty closed in such disaster? Would 
the man who put an end to the period of anarchy 
occasioned by the disaster to which the Harris Papy- 
rus refers have taken the name of the Pharaoh 
who inaugurated it ? And is there not an incidental 
proof, therefore, in the very name Setnekht assumed, 
that Seti II. did not end the Dynasty ? The sequel 
will show, moreover, that in choosing Seti as a name 
the founder of Dynasty XX., who w T as doubtless de- 
sirous of keeping up a connection with the past, 
made a wise choice of a name. 

Who Amenmes was, no one can say with cer- 
tainty. The monuments simply point to him as the 
man who contested with Seti II. the sovereignty of 
Egypt. He called himself in his cartouche " Prince 
of Thebes," and it is evident that his reign was 
recognized by the Theban priests. He may have 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 141 

been one of the many grandsons of Eameses II., 
probably a son of an older brother of Mineptah's. 
Political ambition would doubtless characterize such 
a man, living as he would amid the conspiracies of a 
court. He would be sure to see his chance, amid 
the religious animosities of the day, to play a role 
as the champion of " Amen " and the old-time dog- 
mas, in opposition to the " Set " worshippers. It is 
also possible, if the Manetho tradition can be trusted, 
that he saw a further opportunity in the extreme 
youth of the heir of Seti II. It is undoubtedly 
possible to fit in these suppositions with the sure 
monumental indications of the period. The " Seti, 
Prince of Cush," of the monuments could easily 
enough be the young son of Seti II., who at the out- 
break of hostilities between his father and Amenmes 
was sent for safety to Ethiopian friends, and was 
thus far away when his father's reign came suddenly 
to an end. It is but needful to suppose that at his 
father's death the " Prince of Cash " was for the 
time being thrust aside, to make clear what was 
probably the rest of the story. Amenmes for the 
time reigned as a veritable Pharaoh, recognized as 
such by the priests, and long enough to build a tomb 
in the king's valley. 

It is evident, however, that Amenmes did not rule 
with an undisputed sway; for it was undoubtedly 
contested, — notably by Siptah. 

Siptah at least reached the throne only after a 



142 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

struggle with some pretender or usurper ; for the 
monuments mention that with the help of Ba'i, who 
became his Premier, he was at length, as he affirms, 
" established on his father's throne, and after silencing 
a lie." 1 

Who his royal father could have been, can only 
be conjectured. There is a chapel at Silsilis, spe- 
cially consecrated to Mineptah, whose legends deco- 
rate the door and are also found inside, where they 
are associated with the cartouches of his son Seti II. 2 
Curiously, Siptah is also found there, represented as 
in his tomb, in the act of offering the symbol of 
" Ma " (or " justice ") to Amen-Ra. The association 
of the cartouches of the three in this little chapel 
would certainly show a family connection to have 
existed between Mineptah, Mineptah Seti II., and 
Mineptah Siptah, — a connection which would be 
suggested further by the fact that they were all 
three Mineptahs. The temple scene certainly claims 
some connection between the three. It is, in fact, 
perfectly possible that he, as well as Seti II., may 
have been a son of Mineptah. He may have been 
a younger brother, therefore, of Seti II., who amid 
the conspiracies that ended his brother's reign and 
the enforced absence of the still young prince Seti, 
his nephew, or his minority, deemed himself pos- 
sessed of a valid claim to his father's throne, but 

1 Chabas' Recb.ercb.es, p. 128. 

2 Idem, p. 81. 



Tlie Exodus Pharaoh. 143 

found himself for a time unable to dispossess Amen- 
mes, who had obtained Theban recognition. 

Moreover, all Egyptologists agree in looking on 
Siptah, whatever his personal claim may have been, 
as not so unquestionably a Pharaoh as to need no 
support for his claim ; and all of them agree in re- 
garding his marriage with Queen Tauser as a polit- 
ical move. And there are indications that this 
was so. 

Siptah's tomb, e. g., as has been stated, seems to 
have been at first made, not by him nor for him, but 
for the queen. There are indisputable evidences of 
enlargement and alterations, which belong to their 
own era and not to the period of usurpation. There 
is good reason, therefore, for believing that after 
Siptah married Tauser, rather than build a new one, 
the old tomb designed for her was simply altered so 
as to make it serve for them both. 

Who Tauser was, is unknown. She may have been 
a queen-dowager, and with special rights also as the 
daughter of a Pharaoh. It is possible for her to 
have been the Queen of Seti II. and the mother of 
the young " Prince of Cush," who, after her hus- 
band's death, kept up in the North a sort of re- 
gency, notwithstanding the success of Amenmes in 
the South ; for no indication has been met of the 
latter's presence in the North. 

As such, she may have found in Siptah, her hus- 
band's brother and her child's uncle, according to 



144 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

the hypothesis, one to espouse her cause as against 
Amenmes. There would be nothing improbable, 
either, in her marrying the man who was at length 
successful in overthrowing the rival of her house, 
and even in agreeing, as a choice between evils, to a 
compromise as to the throne, — viz., that Siptah 
during the minority of her son should reign jointly 
with herself, with the understanding that the young 
" Prince of Cush, Seti," was to be his successor. 

In this way Siptah would add to his own claim to 
the throne (as the surviving son of his father) — a 
claim which could be contested — the claim he could 
make as the husband of Queen Tauser. He would 
therefore simply hold in abeyance during a minority 
the succession of Prince Seti, the rightful heir. What- 
ever hypothesis, however, be adopted, it is admitted 
by all that in some way Siptah owed much to his 
queen. The tomb was beyond a doubt originally 
excavated for her. At the entrance, where one 
always looks for the name of the tomb's builder, 
there are some fragments of stucco with which the 
rock was invested. On the fillet of the doorway 
are to be found the traces of two successive pic- 
tures, the more ancient sculptured on the stone it- 
self and containing only Tauser's legend as a queen. 
On the jambs of the doorway, also sculptured on 
the rock, is seen the beginning of an inscription to 
the same queen, beginning with the words " hered- 
itary daughter . . . exalted ..." She was there- 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 145 

fore unquestionably a queen in her own right. 1 
It was not until Siptah was associated with her that 
the alterations and enlargements were made, and a 
few portraits of the two sculptured together. While 
Tauser is met in inscriptions and portraits every- 
where through the tomb, except in the additions 
made by Setnekht, Siptah himself is rarely met 
therein. 

It is certainly true, therefore, putting all the facts 
together, that the queen in some way was more a 
queen than was Siptah a king. This may serve to 
explain why it is that in the Manetho lists Queen 
Tauser ends Dynasty XIX., rather than Siptah, her 
husband. According to Egyptian usage, a man's 
marriage with a queen, who was such in her own 
right, did not make him a legitimate Pharaoh, had 
he no other claim to the throne. Their common 
children derived from the marriage the right of suc- 
cession, though not from the father, but from the 
mother. In this particular case the young " Prince 
Seti " would be regarded as hereditary prince, both 
by right and by agreement, and consequently Sip- 
tah's " first-born " would only rightfully come next 
in the succession. To be sure, all such arrangements 
would be certain to produce jealousies and family 
dissensions ; and it can be understood how on the 
death of the queen the agreement might be ignored, 
and Siptah claim the throne for himself not only, 

1 Notices Descriptives, vol. i. p. 448. 
10 



146 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

but set aside the son of his wife, the rightful heir, 
and claim the succession for his own son. Some 
such state of things would explain how peculiarly 
striking a judgment it would appear to Pharaoh that 
slew his " first-born " and yet allowed a foster-child 
to survive. 

What the throne names of the young Prince Seti 
may have been, when he attempted to succeed Sip- 
tah, is of course pure conjecture. On the monu- 
ments that associate him with Siptah he is simply 
"Seti, Prince of Gush," with other titles, such as 
were borne by a hereditary prince ; and no one, 
therefore, can tell whether his throne names, if 
known, would satisfy the conditions mentioned by 
Champollion and Lepsius respecting the first usurper 
of Siptah' s tomb. And yet one can understand how 
such a prince, the victim of so many intrigues, whose 
rights had been so long held in abeyance, first by 
Amenmes and then by Siptah himself, albeit the lat- 
ter at first pretended to recognize and befriend him, 
would take the first chance after Siptah was swept 
away to resent his own wrongs by covering Siptah's 
cartouches with his own. 

It would be perfectly natural, moreover, for such 
a prince to adopt for his cartouches names as like 
his father's as possible. It is but needful to suppose 
that for the one he took the family name (which he 
bore indeed as Prince), so that his first cartouche 
would be identical with that of his father and with 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 147 

that of the first Seti, 1 in order adequately to explain 
the perplexing fragments of Fig. 4. Then, if it be 
supposed that for his other name he took the first 
part of his father's second cartouche, and for distinc- 
tion's sake simply changed the latter half, so that 
his second cartouche would read "Ra user cheperu 
mer en ptah" instead of his father's " Ra user che- 
peru mer amen" this would also adequately explain 
the perplexing fragments of Figs. 5 and 7, particu- 
larly that d ("p"), mixed up with another "p" of 
Fig. 7. It would also explain the second mww (" n ") 
observable in Fig. 5. 2 

In this way the argument derived from the frag- 
mentary cartouches of the first usurper of Siptah's 
tomb against the immediate succession of Seti II. to 
his father Mineptah, so explicitly certified to by all 
other monuments, entirely loses its force. 

It is altogether likely, therefore, that the frag- 
ments that have occasioned so much perplexity 
refer to another Pharaoh than Seti II., — a Pharaoh 
who may reasonably enough be identified as the 
monumental " Seti, Prince of Cush," who (1) was 

1 His first cartouche would be the same as Fig-. 3. This was not unusual. 
The first cartouches, e. g , of all four Anieneinhats of Dynasty XII. were 
identical. 

2 This supposition also would involve no unusual procedure. In the sec- 
ond cartouches, e. g., of all four Thothmes of Dynasty XVIIL, there is a very 
slight alteration made, for distinction's sake, in the form of the legend, the 
sentiment remaining virtually the same. Thus in that of Thothmes III. we 
read " Ra men cheper," and in that of Thothmes IV. is found simply the plu- 
ral of the same, " Ra men cheperu." It cannot be said, therefore, that either 
supposition of the text is impossible, or even improbable. 



148 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt 

certainly a courtier under Siptah, (2) who could easily 
have been a young son and rightful heir of Seti II., 
and (3) who may easily enough have attempted at 
least to succeed Siptah. For if Siptah was the Pha- 
raoh after whom came anarchy, — or, as the event 
has been understood in these lectures, the Exodus 
Pharaoh, — it can easily have been after the death of 
Siptah's " first-born," and after the disaster which, 
as the Bible suggests, overtook him and his, that a 
surviving rightful heir should have attempted for a 
while, at least in the South, whither he had doubtless 
fled, to stem the tide of confusion that ensued, and 
even have time to dishonor the empty tomb, and yet 
himself be soon swept out of sight amid the anarchy 
that overwhelmed the country. 

To be sure, all this is purely hypothetical ; but it 
certainly does in a reasonable way harmonize the 
known facts of the monuments with the order of 
succession that may be called traditional. It ex- 
plains, however inadequately in the opinion of some, 
the only doubt as to the order of succession, occa- 
sioned by Siptah's tomb. Rather than agree with 
Chabas or Eisenlohr, that Lepsius and Champollion 
blundered in their transcriptions and statements, or 
even that a scribe blundered in copying a very simi- 
lar name, one might be willing to adopt any hy- 
pothesis that may remove the perplexity occasioned 
by the tomb's phenomena. When every other monu- 
mental indication justifies a certain order of the 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 149 

succession, some explanation of the single exception 
may be' sought. Besides, if the traditional order 
must be upset by the single exception, the neces- 
sity would remain to explain in some satisfactory 
way the monumental indications that intimate an 
unchallenged succession by Seti II. to his father's 
throne. 

Such is the state of the evidence, on account of 
which some Egyptologists end Dynasty XIX. with 
Seti II., others with Siptah. The issue at present, 
consequently, is uncertain, and the problem unsolved. 
It will be seen, however, that the problem has been 
brought in these last days within narrower limits. 
It may be claimed with some degree of confidence 
respecting the Exodus Pharaoh, that on the one 
hand he was not Mineptah, the son of Barneses II., 
and that, on the other hand, he was either Mineptah 
Seti II. or Mineptah Siptah. Both of these Pha- 
raohs ruled all Egypt, and either of them would 
abundantly satisfy the Bible portraiture of the man 
who dared to withstand God ; though, apart from 
the traditional order which would point to Siptah 
as the man, his history of conflict issuing in victory 
could readily have so far elated him as to lead him 
to believe that he could succeed against the God 
of the Hebrews. 

Summing up the case as respects Siptah, (1) he 
was probably the last Pharaoh of Dynasty XIX. ; 
(2) he was a " Mineptah,'' thus satisfying the tradi- 



150 Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 

tion that affirms the Exodus Pharaoh to have been 
such; (3) his tomb proved to be a tomb that could 
be usurped, twice usurped,- — in the first instance by 
one " Seti," whoever he was; and subsequently by 
Setnekht, founder of Dynasty XX. There is no 
evidence that the former occupied it ; but the latter 
did- It is interesting, however, to know that while 
Setnekht was buried therein, he was not buried in 
Siptah's sepulchral hall. No trace of Siptah's burial 
in the tomb has ever been found. The lid of Set- 
nekht's sarcophagus was found in the second sepul- 
chral hall, but nothing that w T ould indicate Siptah's 
burial in his tomb. The two usurpations would 
indeed seem to settle that point. Nevertheless, 
while usurping the tomb, Setnekht resorted to a 
device that is unique in tomb architecture, — an 
added second sepulchral chamber, separated from 
the original funeral hall by two long corridors, as 
though, as Champollion says, 1 for some reason he 
did not wish to lie in Siptah's chamber. It was not 
that the tomb was not large enough ; for it is the 
third in size of all the known kings' tombs, and one 
of rare magnificence. The facts are so novel that 
one cannot help conjecturing some motive for the 
additions. Does not it seem to intimate that when 
Setnekht reached the throne, he found an empty 
tomb all ready to hand, and so usurped it, simply 
transforming it to suit his own purposes ? But while 

1 Notices Descriptives, vol. i. p. 459. 



The Exodus Pharaoh. 151 

he could cover over with stucco the old cartouches, 
as though their owner, because the author of na- 
tional disasters, deserved to be so disgraced, he 
could not bring himself to lie where Siptah was to 
have laid, and so made for himself his own death- 
chamber. 



ESSAY 



ON THE 



"APERIU" AND THE "HEBREWS." 



r I "HERE are still two opinions about the propri- 
ety of regarding the proper name ■• I ^ J 
" Aperiu " or a Aperu " of the monuments as the 
proper name " Hebrews " of Holy Scripture. Those 
who disallow the identification allege that there are 
two difficulties in the way, one philological and the 
other historical. 

The philological difficulty is the presence in " Ape- 
riu " of a p )" p ") instead of the J (" b ") that, as 
Brugsch says, 1 one would expect to find. 

But to this objection several considerations may 
be urged : — 

(1) The precise phonetic value of the two hiero- 
glyphs in dispute still remains uncertain. And this 
is to a degree true even of the letter 2 of the Hebrew 
name. 2 To judge from some Greek transcriptions of 

1 Diet. Geog., p. 113. 

2 It is generally stated as " bh," or as equivalent to the English " v," just 
as the modern Greeks sound their £. With a daghesh 3, the aspirate is 
removed. 



Essay on the "Aperiu" and the "Hebrews." 153 

proper names containing the 0, as, e. g., Mmeph- 
tah and Si^tah instead of Mine^tah and Si/?tah, 
the fl was sounded more like the Greek " ph " 
than " p," and the former of these was most prob- 
ably more like the sound of the Hebrew 3 than 
was that of the hieroglyph Jj commonly considered 
as "b." 

(2) The "b " and "p " are closely related sounds. 
They are both consonantal " mutes/' and in Greek be- 
longed to the same general class of P sounds. The 
three Greek letters 77, /3, <f>, were simply the same 
P mute, only differentiated as smooth, middle, and 
aspirated, according to the measure of exertion used 
in the pronunciation. 

(3) There was, as a matter of fact, no absolute 
uniformity in the transcriptions of foreign names. 
This may be illustrated by the case of another " p " 
hieroglyph ; for the Egyptian script was rich in 
many signs for the same letter. This originated 
most probably in the fact that the signs were the 
first picture letters of words beginning with the same 
sound. They may be regarded as alphabetic equiv- 
alents, and were used as variants. In this way there 
were many " p" signs. There was, e. g., a sign zn 3, 
which was just as much a " p " as was the sign q in 
" Aperiu." Now, this sign crzi, which forms an ele- 
ment of so many proper names, is transcribed into 
Greek by all three forms of the P mute. It is, e. g., 
the initial letter in the original of all three of the 



154 Essay on the "Aperiu" and the "Hebrews? 

words transcribed into Greek as Patoumos, Pousiris, 
and P/zaraoh. And if this is true of one so-called 
" p," why should it not be equally true of the others ? 
And if it is true of Greek, why should it not be of 
Hebrew transcriptions ? In fact, " Aperiu," for the 
Pentateuchal " Hebrews," does not stand quite alone. 
Chabas (in " Melanges Egyptol. ' vol. i. p. 48) gives 
another instance where the ^ in a Hebrew word 
(Khore#) is transliterated into Egyptian by a Q 
instead of a Jj 

(4) There are indications in the Egyptian script 
itself that the " p " and " b " were, to a degree at 
least, interchangeable. Brugsch (in " Diet. Hierog.," 
vol. ii. p. 365) shows, e. g., that the sound of "b" 
was modified by what are known as phonetic equiv- 
alents, which served as determinatives of sound. 
Now, curiously enough, one of the phonetic determi- 
natives that sometimes follows Jf ("b") is another 

of the signs for " p," viz., A^f . This would certainly 
intimate, in view of the office of the phonetic deter- 
minative, that the J[ ("b") could be sometimes 

sounded as r>>X? an( ^? of course, vice versa. 

It is therefore very probable that in Egyptian, as 
in other languages, the " p " and " b " signs were not 
only closely related, but, as variant names would 
show, not so precisely discriminated on all occasions 
as some have imagined. Instead therefore of con- 
cluding, as some have done, from finding a U instead 



Essay on the "Aperiu" and the "Hebrews." 155 

of a j[ in the monumental " Aperiu," that it could 

not have been intended as a transcription of the 
Hebrew word for " Hebrews/' it would probably 
be more correct to conclude that the D, better 
than a Jj would have done, represented the sound 
which the Egyptian scribes heard when the Hebrews 
pronounced their national name. 

The historical objection raised to the identification 
is twofold, — (1) that the monumental name can be 
referred to another people than the Hebrews; (2) 
that " Aperiu " are met in reigns subsequent to the 
Exodus. 

Respecting the first form of the objection, Brugsch, 
e. g., identifies them as descendants of some prison- 
ers brought back from Syria by Thothmes III, and 
described as coming from two towns, each called 
" Aper." 

The name of the two towns " Aper " is found on a 
Karnak pylon, but without any further allusion to its 
locale than that, like all the rest, they were Syrian 
towns. 1 The name " Aperu " itself is met but once 
previous to the time of Dynasty XIX. It was found 
on the back of a papyrus belonging to Thothmes' 
day, and in a single clause where it is said, " Let 
one of the Aperu ride out," as though they were 

1 Brugsch's " History," vol. i. p. 350 ; Mariette's " Les listes geog. des 
Pylones de Karnak;" Maspero in " Trans. Vict. Instit.," vol. xx., "on the 
geographical names of the list of Thothmes III. which may be referred to 
Galilee." 



156 Essay on the "Aperiu" and the "Hebrews." 

" knights, who mounted their horses at the king's 
command." 1 It is of course possible that these 
knights were the war prisoners from the " Aper " 
towns, who, as the Karnak inscription says, like the 
prisoners from the other towns, were assigned as ser- 
vants to the Theban temples. But this is not certain. 
They are nowhere again mentioned, and it is there- 
fore gratuitous to affirm that the " Aperiu " met on 
the Dynasty XIX. monuments (some two centuries 
later) were their descendants. 

The later " Aperiu " are found in Lower, not in 
Upper Egypt ; and they are described not as tem- 
ple servants or warrior knights, but as slaves con- 
demned to the quarry and to bear burdens. 

A yet more serious objection to their being the 
same is found in the Egyptian script itself, which by 
using a different determinative with the word as it is 
found in the two eras, would suggest them to have 
been different peoples. 

The earlier " Aperu " is written with the determi- 
native ^^, which is not ethnic, but, as Brugsch says, 
conveys the idea of smallness or youth. 

The later " Aperiu " is always written with the 

determinative | , which is the conventional symbol 

of a foreign people. Chabas remarks that there is 
an Egyptian word " aper," which means " to provide, 
to fortify ; " but, as he says, " this meaning is not 

1 See Mr. Goodwin in " Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch.," vol. iii. p. 342. 



Essay on the "Aperiu" and the "Hebreivs" 157 

ethnic ; where it is found with the determinative of 
a foreign people, there we have to do." * 

The later " Aperiu," first met in Dynasty XIX., 
do certainly, as described on the monuments, fit in 
most admirably with the story of the Hebrews, as to 
era, locale, and occupation. 

Thus the Bible tells how the Hebrews built Pithom 
and Ramses as fortified magazines for Pharaoh. Now, 
the former has been discovered ; and monuments re- 
covered thence prove that the town unearthed was 
a fortified store-city, and owed its foundation to 
Rameses II. The identification in this case of the 
Hebrews as the builders of Rameses' " Pithom " is 
complete. The other town " Ramses " has not yet 
been found, possibly because in this case explorers 
have been looking for it as a separate town, whereas 
in all probability this store-city was not really a 
separate town, but an extension or addition to an 
old town. It is undoubtedly true, according to a 
papyrus, 2 that the same Pharaoh who built Pithom 
employed the " Aperiu " in making an important 
addition to his capital of a grand fortress-tower, 
which is called therein " the tower of Ramses Mia- 
men." In the case of the fortress " Ramses," there- 
fore, built by command of Rameses II, it was the 
" Aperiu " that built it. 

1 Recherches, p. 104. 

2 Pap. Leyden, I. 349, line 7 ; Chabas' Recherches, p. 102, and his Me- 
langes, vol. i. p. 49. 



158 Essay on the "Aperiu" and the "Hebrews" 

Is it possible, then, putting these indications to- 
gether, any longer to disallow the identification ? 
For it would certainly be a remarkable circumstance, 
one quite as difficult to accept as the identification 
proposed, if we are to believe that there were living 
in the very same era and in the very same locale, 
nay, side by side, two peoples called (writing their 
two names as the supposition would require) " Ape- 
riu" and " Aperiu," — both foreign peoples reduced 
to servitude, and both doing the very same work ; 
nay more, both contributing to the construction of 
the store-fortress " Ramses " of Barneses II. Must 
this be believed ? If the identification of the 
"Khita" and the " Hittites," of "Thuku" and 
" Succoth," so long debated, is now generally al- 
lowed, why should that of the "Aperiu" and the 
" Hebrews " be disallowed ? 

It has been urged further as a difficulty, that a 
band of "Aperiu," 2,083 strong, is mentioned in the 
time of Rameses III., and another band of 800 in 
the time of Rameses IV., — i. e., subsequent to the 
Exodus. 1 They are also indicated as foreigners, 
and they are located in the old quarries of the 
Rameses II. " Aperiu," not far from the Gulf of 
Suez. 2 

Chabas regarded them as mercenaries who elected 
to remain after the Exodus ; though it would be 

1 Brugsch's History, vol. ii. p. 129; Speaker's Commentary, vol. i. p. 467. 

2 Brugsch's Diet. Ge'og., p. 115. 



Essay on the "Aperiu" and the "Hebrews" 159 

difficult to explain, as Canon Cook suggests, why 
they should have wished or dared to stay, and 
why their presence would be tolerated after the 
Exodus. 

But, curiously enough, those of Rameses III. are 
indicated by two determinatives, — one, the usual 
determinative for foreigners ; the other is that of a 
leg in a trap, the meaning of which is obvious. 
They were probably prisoners forwarded by some 
garrison commander of Barneses 1IL, who assisted 
the inhabitants of the land in some conflict with the 
Hebrews during the earlier period of their Palestine 
conquest. 

In the case of the 800 "Aperiu" of Rameses IV. 
the group is written not only with the general deter- 
minative for foreigners, but with a group represent- 
ing bowmen, which would clearly indicate that those 
"Aperiu" were foreign bowmen taken prisoners, 
most probably in a skirmish. The fact, in connec- 
tion with the lapse of time in this case, would show 
that the conquerors of Palestine, whence doubtless 
they came, had become a military people. Nothing 
would be more natural than to send these "He- 
brew " prisoners to the very place associated with 
their fathers, and to the same dreaded toil. 

Summing up the argument, it may be said that 
even if the identification may not be yet as deci- 
sive as one could wish, it is certainly possible ; nay 
more, probable. 



160 Essay on the "Aperiu" and the "Hebrews." 

The sacred writer tells us that his people were 
called "Hebrews." The monuments seem to show 
that Pharaoh and the Egyptians wrote of them as 
"Aperiu." One must here, as elsewhere, simply 
wait for the complete justification of the identifica- 
tion that is sure to come. 



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